Firstly, I hope everyone is having a good new year. Welcome to 2010. That’s “twenty ten” and not “two thousand and ten” according to the American National Association of Good Grammar (NAGG).
To kick off January, here’s a new identity for Impossibly Stupid, a blog run by Doc O’Leary. Doc writes about many things, but with a particular interest in some of the mindless things that people do that make you think “Well what was the point of that?”. Here’s his original logo:
Impossibly stupid original logo.
It’s not actually that bad of a logo, but it was lacking communication between it and the blog name.
This was a very short project, but one which still required the sketching of ideas between any digital work was done. I started by trying to incorporate the ‘i’ and ’s’ of ‘Impossibly Stupid’ into one solid logo and I think this is where a lot of logo designs start from. Some are fantastic, others don’t work at all. I also tried to play with the idea of taking one step forward and two steps back to reinforce the idea of something being stupid.
Initial ideas for Impossibly Stupid.
That wasn’t really working as well as I had hoped it would so I moved onto something else, playing with the simple equation of 1+1=3. Something so obviously wrong that everyone knows it’s wrong. It was a simple equation, but one which I felt reflected the tone of voice of Doc’s words perfectly.
I tried a number of variations of the equation, trying to design it in such a way that it looked more like a graphic, rather than numbers but I found that the message became too complex, making people look for the connection between it and the name.
Initial ideas for Impossibly Stupid.
I also tried different placements of the equation, including a vertical alternative.
Initial ideas for Impossibly Stupid.
But in the end, I came back to something much simpler – I+I=III
The final idea used for Impossibly Stupid.
Using ‘I’ instead of ‘1′ and using ‘III’ instead of ‘3′ helped the logo to stay unique and relate back to the name. With three ‘i’s in the name, it just gives a little nod, but not so much that it’s too obvious.
From the final sketch design, I then worked in Illustrator to refine it, trying different varations. The final logo:
The final logo for Impossibly Stupid.
I manually kerned the equation using VAG Rounded as a basis for the numerals. I also enlarged the plus/equals symbols and tightened up the words a little bit so that the logo as a whole wasn’t too elongated.
Doc was very happy with the final result and was kind enough to leave a permanent credit link back to my site, which I appreciate.
A quick, but enjoyable project to work on and one which had a very simple solution!
In the last entry, I wrote about how we had developed the campaign to the point where we were now in the studio, taking photos in preparation for the poster campaign. Unfortunately, having looked at them over the following weekend, I decided that they weren’t good enough to use and so on the following Monday, we went back to the studio.
Photoshoot Number 2
On our first trip to the studio, we had to set up ourselves and as I’ve already written, I’m not a photographer. We struggled along and did take some shots that were adequate, but none that stood out. Luckily on the second visit, we managed to find Mike Pumford, Kingsway’s technician who generously took a moment of his time to help us out and set the equipment up correctly and we started taking much better shots.
A few unaltered photos from our second photoshoot.
A few unaltered photos from our second photoshoot.
A few unaltered photos from our second photoshoot.
As you can see, these images proved to be much more professional, even at an unedited stage. We ended up taking a lot of photos. Some good, some bad. But there were quite a number of them that stood out.
A few unaltered photos from our second photoshoot.
A few unaltered photos from our second photoshoot.
In order to get people to pay attention to the posters, I felt that some tight closeups of his face were important. His costume was secondary. His green, over-exaggerated face was what would attract people to look at and read the posters.
Making Viral Man larger than life
The next day, I began sifting through all of the photos we had taken. With three photos picked out, I set to work on making him larger than life. It was important that the character only resembled a normal person, rather than simply looking like a person with green facepaint. So, in order to do this, I started exaggerating his eyes to the point where there was no doubt that these eyes could never belong to a normal human being.
A digital makeup check and an exaggeration of the eyes.
I started by performing a digital makeup check on the eyes, improving the coverage of the facepaint on the eyelids to the point where they looked much more naturally blended. Also, I have brown eyes and they looked out of place on such a green character so I changed the colour of them. Finally, I exaggerated the entire area of the eye to much larger proportions. Of course, the beauty of Photoshop is that you can do these modifications seamlessly and it did the trick. I also increased the size of the character’s nose and mouth, and did the same makeup checks on the lips, while digitally pulling the sides of the mouth up a little to make it look as if the character was grinning more than humanly possible.
A much less human grin.
The Logo
As I showed in an earlier entry, I wanted the character to have a logo of some sort. Something that would tie all of the various elements of the campaign together and I knew roughly what it should look like:
A logo to tie all elements of the campaign together.
Now that we had taken lots of photos, I had something to reference. It was important that it wasn’t just a generic silhouette like in my above sketch but adequately referenced the character. And of course the thing that stands out most about the character besides the fact that he’s green, is his hair. And so this is what I came up with:
You’ll notice that it says Viral Man, not Touching Man, as I’ve been referring to throughout these entries. And I’ll get onto that in a moment.
After designing the logo and writing the copy for the posters, I was very happy with how they looked. And here they are:
All three posters.
You can view larger versions in the project area, which will be going live within a week of this post.
The presentation
After four weeks of working on this project, surprisingly, we had still yet to actually show anything to the committee responsible for giving it the green light. We had wanted to keep it secret until a point at which we could properly present it i.e. The above posters and photoshoots.
On Wednesday, I spent the day designing a screen-based presentation which I was to deliver the next morning to introduce the committee to what we had so far. I travelled to Chester for an 8am start and set the presentation up in the meeting room. At 8:30am, everyone arrived and the reveal took place. I had designed the presentation to slowly describe why the character looked the way he looked by cropping various photos of him, starting at his green shoes and working all the way up to his face. At the final reveal of his face, everyone seemed to like it.
In addition to the reveal Touching Man’s face, I had also been practicing my voice for the character and recorded a basic example script so that the committee could get an understanding of how he would sound in videos. Have a listen.
Unfortunately, there were concerns about the voice sounding too much like a speech difficulty and because it was a university-produced campaign, they didn’t want to offend anyone. This was understandable and the voice was scrapped for something more recognisable and normal.
Overall however, everyone was really pleased with how the campaign had been developed so far and were looking forward to seeing the finalised videos.
One of the things that came up in the meeting was the creation of the website. I hadn’t been looking forward to designing the site as there wasn’t much time to do create it and a Flash website takes time. Luckily however, the c0mmittee expressed their interest in using social networking instead of a website because they were worried about maintaining the site. It meant that we could focus on building the Facebook profile and more time to film the videos.
One final thing that the committee asked for was a second poster campaign that ran with the government’s national campaign’s slogan of “Catch it, Kill it, Bin it”. This meant another trip to the studio on the same day, where Hannah and I spent the afternoon taking more photos.
Photoshoot number 3
Just before we went to the studio, we spent an hour looking for props to use in the three new posters, showing how the character could be caught, killed and binned. That meant buying a net, anti-bacterial gel and a large bin. Quite a strange shopping list.
The photoshoots are fun, but quite tiring. It’s much more than a case of just taking three photos and that’s it. It’s getting the right photo, with the right focus, lighting etc. And this takes a hell of a long time to do. We spent a long time getting shots to look right.
A friend came to help/watch us take more photos in the studio and literally provided a helping hand to hold some anti-bacterial gel to look as if he was killing me with it. I also took some shots of his arm on its own so that I could play around with it in Photoshop and add it to a photo of myself.
At the end of the day, we came away with nearly 300 photos. That night I started to develop the photos into posters.
The name change
The next day, I recieved a priority email alerting us to the fact that the committee had changed their mind about the name “Touching Man” as they felt it had too many negative connotations, especially for a university-led campaign. Instead, they asked if they could use “Viral Man”. This change came after I had already designed the posters, logo and set up the Facebook profile. Admittedly, the four of us responsible for running with the name (And telling the committee about it at an early stage) weren’t happy with the name change and I tried my best to persuade them to keep “Touching Man”. It wasn’t to be though and “Viral Man” was chosen as the new name.
In retrospect, it’s completely understandable. I think that because we had been working on it on our own for four weeks, we had become quite accustomed to the name, regardless of if it was suitable enough for the project. While “Viral Man” is a little more tame and obvious, “Touching Man” does indeed bring too many negative connotations and the name change was justified. And so Viral Man was born.
I made the required changes to the posters and logo and set up another Facebook profile, this time in the name of Viral Man. Luckily, the 2,500 stickers which had been designed for the campaign had not been printed yet and they needed to be changed to reflect the change of Facebook profile address.
And so the penultimate week was over and there were now two poster campaigns, a Facebook profile, stickers, a logo and a countless number of photos that had been taken over the course of three photoshoots. Next week would be all about filming and finally, signing, sealing and delivering the whole campaign to the university in preparation for its launch just a few weeks later.
In the final entry: Two days of filming, an interview with Viral Man and taking delivery of 2,500 spikey balls.
Today I took some new photos of the things I had designed for Chester Gateway Theatre. These include a letterhead, business card and even a performance ticket. I really enjoyed working on this project because I’m a huge fan of corporate design. I love designing logos and in particular, the media on which the logo will be applied to.
There are so many creative possibilities when it comes to business stationery and any budget can be accommodated. Having an identity for your business is crucial to establishing a presence in your target market, regardless of what it is you’re selling. With a stronger identity than your competitors, you’re much more likely to receive business and if your business doesn’t have a strong identity, then I would love to help you come up with one. Just get in touch if you’d like to work together.
If you’d like to check out the project, click here.
As part of David Pache’s efforts to create awareness for the many graphic designers in the world, he presents part two of his 100 Brands of Interest series and in it, you’ll find my logo. David contacted me a few months ago, out of the blue about adding my logo to the list and I was very flattered. You can find the article here.
There’s so many excellent logos on the list from simple logos to the more complex and beautiful. I feel honoured to be included in the list.
Pache is an excellent logo designer and one which I’ve followed for many years from my time at LogoPond. His logos are always well thought out and reflect the company they’re designed for accurately. I thank him for the time he’s spent compiling this list and for featuring me in it.
As part of one of my University briefs, I had to rebrand a theatre in Chester named “Chester Gateway Theatre”. I really enjoyed the brief because one of my favourite things to do is to brand and rebrand. Logo design in particular is something I really enjoy. Six weeks after the completion of the project, Chester Chronicle interviewer David Holmes and photographer Ian Cooper came in to speak to us about the project for inclusion in the Chronicle. The Chester Chronicle is committed to getting a theatre back in Chester after the Gateway Theatre closed down in 2005. I was lucky enough to be interviewed and photographed with my work and today, my picture was published in the paper.
You can see the logo in all of its glory here. I’ll be uploading further promotional pieces that were designed for the rebranding very soon including business stationery and posters.
It’s really nice having a chance to display your work to a larger audience, even if the actual logo itself will not be used. I believe it creates more awareness of graphic design in general and of course getting your photo (and perhaps more importantly your name) in the paper is a small step to getting my name out there and giving potential clients more confidence and trust that I can not only get the job done, but to a professional level.
I think that’s such an interesting question that graphic design on many occasions fails to answer. So much design follows trends instead of starting one. No one person can be blamed for wanting to look like something else, however. Afterall, we as a society are comfortable with the familiar, while casting out anything that can be considered unusual. You only have to look at the likes of the London 2012 logo to see how that was unwelcomed by the world.
It’s hard to be different because it’s scary being different. The more you stray from the realms of familiarity, the less people there are to give you advice on how to progress because if they’ve never done it, how are they going to help you? And if they’ve never done what you’re trying to do, they’ll always want to direct you down a path on which they have an understanding. But just because someone isn’t there to point you in a (right or wrong) direction, doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t always do it regardless. At the worst, it’s a failed experiment, giving you valuable lessons for whatever project you work on next and at best, you design something that leads the rest of the industry, seperating you from those who are content just to follow.
You’ll notice that it says Viral Man, not Touching Man, as I’ve been referring to throughout these entries. And I’ll get onto that in a moment.
As part of David Pache’s efforts to create awareness for the many graphic designers in the world, he presents part two of his 100 Brands of Interest series and in it, you’ll find my logo. David contacted me a few months ago, out of the blue about adding my logo to the list and I was very flattered. You can 
