Custom Printing: Designing a Logo for an Asphalt Paver

When the driveway paving person came up to our house a few days ago to retrieve a coroplast sign he had inadvertently left behind, he said he was glad my fiancee and I hadn’t thrown it away. He said the signs had been expensive.

Being a custom printing broker, I said I might be able to get them for less than he had been paying. The words just came out. “One seller to another,” I said. “I’m a commercial printing salesperson.”

So we sat down to discuss what he had, and what he needed. The coroplast lawn sign quickly morphed into magnetic signs for the sides of his trucks, a complete vehicle wrap for one of his vans, coffee mugs, hats, and the jewel in the crown of it all: a new logo. He needed a new logo to put on everything.

How I Approached the Job

During my 40-year history within the field of graphic arts and commercial printing, I have been both a designer and an art director. Therefore, I thought back to what I knew to be the best practices for designing a logo: that is, how I could give my client the most versatile and dynamic logo possible, and also help him understand how best to use it on his varied promotional materials.

To do this, I started with Google Images. I looked at hundreds of his competitors’ logos. I wanted to steep myself in all things related to driveway repaving, so I could make his new logo both fit in (be recognizable by his potential clients) and stand out (be more unique, more inspiring of trust, and more striking than his competitors’ logos).

My client had voiced an interest in putting the state flag inside the type outlines of his company name. I had made a mental note. I had also noticed that he liked my business card. Since my card is crisp, simple, and spare in its design, I also kept this in mind as I approached the next step: brainstorming and creating mock-ups.

Making Multiple Mock-Ups

Because my client liked my business card, I started his design with the same display typeface I had used for mine, Gill Sans. It is a sans serif type that includes dramatic diagonal strokes in the letterforms. You could say that it is simple, dynamic, and even “architectural.” To me it seemed appropriate for a building contractor, a company that builds physical “things.”

I started with the idea my client had voiced, putting the state flag in the outlines of the name of his company. When I tried it, the result seemed to be too complex and perhaps even unrecognizable. You couldn’t readily identify the state flag. (I knew that anything other than instant recognition would slow down the viewer, and that he or she would move on to other things.)

As an alternative, which would still address my client’s stated goals, I created a rectangular cropping of the flag blowing in the wind. This gave the image a sense of movement. On top of this image of the flag I placed the title of my client’s business. The first word I set in all capital letters, flush right (white, reversed out of the flag). The second word (“asphalt”), I set in all lowercase letters, also flush right. I tightened up the leading so both words (both lines of flush-right type) would read as a single unit, and so the visual outline of the two words would be a simple geometric form.

I did all of this first in black-only type over a grayscale image. I wanted the design to work in its simplest form. When it worked, I knew I could always add color. In fact, what I did next was duplicate the logo and replace the black-and-white flag with a slightly ghosted, full-color image, with the flag in the same position, so my client would have two options of this version from which to choose.

I had said I would give my client three options, so I took the type treatment I had created and placed it on a different background. In this case I created a picture box filled with a photo of asphalt. (You might be surprised at the variety and interest you can find in a photo of asphalt. There were changes in tone as well as a number of identifiable rocks in the image.)

At the same time, this made for a simple but very tactile, textural background. I reversed the first word in my client’s company name (all caps, as before, and flush right to be somewhat different from all the other logos). Then I created an asphalt gray color for the second word in his logo (again, also flush right). At this point I had a black-and-white-only logo. I thought this might be striking, since all the other logos included a lot of color. To create visual interest and contrast, I then added an abstract image of a road (a wide, black line with a bright red, dashed line on top of it). This I placed immediately above the first word of my client’s company name, the all-uppercase name of the state in which his business operated.

As a variant, I removed the black solid line but kept the red dashed line, crossing the photo from left to right and ending at the logotype. The photo of the asphalt added texture, and the splash of red added drama. At this point I had two options (with an alternate version for each).

Since my fiancee is an artist, she wanted to provide a third option to round out our offerings. So we took a map of the state, at her suggestion, and scanned it. The outline was readily recognizable. Over this we placed the logotype (both words, with the state name still in all caps and the second name of the company in lowercase letters). For all three versions of the logo, we decided to stick with the same typeface.

Over the image of the map we placed the “A” for Asphalt (the second word in the company name) in bright red. Then we wrapped the two words of the company name around this “A.” The “A” was large enough that the touch of bright red anchored the viewer’s eye on the “A,” which looked curiously just like a red plastic cone used by asphalt pavers to warn oncoming traffic. The bright red “A” also acted as a visual hook, and the remaining text, nestled in tightly against the side of the “A,” all hung together as a single unit.

So we now had a third option for our client, the name of the company over a screened-back shape of the state in which his business operated.

The next step will be to send him PDFs of the logos for his initial feedback.

What You Can Learn from This Case Study

Here are some thoughts:

1. 1. Make sure the logo you create is relevant. It’s easy to make something look attractive or even striking, but if it does not relate to the client’s business, it will not stick in your client’s (or her or his client’s) mind. Make sure that what the logo means and how it looks are congruent.

1. 1. The best way to start is to look at the competition. Use Google Images, and you’ll have more ideas than you’ll ever want. The goal will just be to do something completely different that stands out but that also looks like it’s for the same kind of business. This isn’t easy.

1. 1. Think in terms of simplicity. The logo will need to be recognizable in both small (on business cards) and large (on signage) formats. Simplicity is the key. That’s why it’s also good to see how it will look in black and white only, as well as in color. You never know. Someone might still have a fax machine.

1. 1. Choose fonts that relate to the tone or “feel” of your client’s company: its vision, purpose, and values. For instance, if it’s a traditional business, like a law firm, consider an Old Style font. Or if it’s a builder, maybe a slab serif typeface would be more appropriate.

1. Create multiple iterations of the logo. If your ideas are working, you might want to take one element (like the typeface) into the next version just to see how it looks. If not, try other typefaces or other treatments. Try versions with photos, and then try versions with type only. Or create options with type and simple icons.

These are just a few ideas. Creating logos is a subject that could fill a bookcase full of books and take a lifetime to master. But the best way to start is to find logos you like–and particularly those that pertain to your client’s field of expertise—and try to determine why they work. (I call this “deconstructing” the logo: asking myself what it is trying to do and how it is achieving this goal.) Then go and make some of your own.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 7th, 2019 at 1:42 am and is filed under Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.