The first challenge of "Creative Workshop: 80 challenges to sharpen your design skills" by David Sherwin. See my first post to learn about the challenge.
THE CHALLENGE
THE CHALLENGE
Spend 10 minutes thinking about your strengths and weaknesses as a designer, your favorite designers, and what you enjoy working on. Design a logo for yourself informed by those responses.
Time Limit: 30 Minutes for idea generation and sketching.
MY TOOLS
IDEA GENERATION: 30 MINUTES
Following the prompt, I made lists of my strengths and weaknesses and favorite designers and work. I included two key sentences that describe what I like to do: "Solve the underlying problems" and "Build cool things"
MY TOOLS
- Imagination!
- Pen and notebook
- Colored Pencils
- Wacom tablet
- Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop
IDEA GENERATION: 30 MINUTES
Following the prompt, I made lists of my strengths and weaknesses and favorite designers and work. I included two key sentences that describe what I like to do: "Solve the underlying problems" and "Build cool things"
I took my pen to my sketch notebook to try to design something that represented all the words I had written. Should my logo include my initials, because after all, it needs to be symbol of me?
Should it be something realistic or abstract?
Maybe it could include an iceberg because it represents a deep base underneath what everyone sees? It would also be personal because it relates to my love of traveling.
Maybe it could include an iceberg because it represents a deep base underneath what everyone sees? It would also be personal because it relates to my love of traveling.
I kept my pen to the notebook most of the time even if I wasn't drawing anything other than lines. It's easy to spend time in your head thinking about what to draw, but instead I just kept drawing until I sketched something that was interesting to me.
The perfectionist in me wanted to spend weeks deciding on a logo, but the timer was counting down. I had to decide, and move on with a design. I went with a tree with exposed roots because deep down, the root of the problem is where it all starts, but it ends with a beautiful piece.
DESIGN EXECUTION: 120 MINUTES
I translated my sketches to digital with the Wacom tablet in Illustrator. My design was intended to be flat and modern, but I added coloring with Photoshop to give it a more warm and natural feel.
OVERALL
Would I use this for my logo today? Probably not, I would need more than a half hour to think deeply about my brand and who I am as a designer to develop a logo that represents me. However overall, this is a success for me because I was able to translate key phrases into an abstract representation in a short amount of time. I also kept sketching when I didn't know what to sketch, and that is a great success for me.