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Campus Compass series 3

We last left off with figure 1. I was happy with the concept, but there were several proportion and spacing issues. The biggest problem was the difference in white space surrounding the inner C versus the A at the mouth of the outer C. My first instinct was to expand the inner C and match the thinner space, as seen in figure 2. Unfortunately, this made it lose quite a bit of punch, so I tried scaling down “ampus” to increase the whitespace around the A (figure 3). By doing that, however, I lost the really nice space I had between the P’s descender and the first hump in the M, so, to solve this, I scaled down “ompass” to get it back. I’m pretty happy with figure 4, so I’m probably about done with this logo. All that’s left is a size test.

Campus Compass size test

Works for me! I think I’ll put this to bed for a few days and start working on some other things.

I’m told that the last Campus Compass series looked like bank logos, which was exactly afraid of. Since I made the fatal mistake of falling in love with my idea, I did whatever I could to make the two Cs work. Ordinarily, this is a terrible idea, but I got lucky and found a solution I’m happy with. It needs a bit of tweaking, but I believe it is conceptually sound.

Campus Compass series 2

In case it’s not obvious, I’ve decided on the lower left logo.

My biggest problem in design is being unable to critique my own work.

Campus Compass series 1

Now, I’m sure there are plenty of issues with every single one of the above logos. I know this because I hate them. If someone else had done these and asked me what I thought of them, I could tell them precisely why they’re terrible. But because I’ve spent so much intimate time with them, I internally rationalize anything wrong with the overall picture. This is perilous. I’m hoping that by writing these things down, I’ll be able to break out of this habit.

I’ve decided on my inanimate object. Well, group of inanimate objects, I suppose. Loose change is open to a wide berth of metaphorical opportunities. I have, so far, come up with:

• Racism (different colored change)
• Foreign relations (foreign currency)
• Wealth (think Scrooge McDuck swimming through piles of money)
• Poverty (Darkwing Duck)
• Questionable associations (slot machines, spotted with several piggy banks)

Puns are also readily available:

• Short changed
• Don’t have two dimes to rub together
• Time for change

I still don’t know if I’m satisfied with this, but it’s at least a direction to head in. At any rate, I’d love to build the entire campaign on horrible puns, but I need more before I can do that.

I finally got my sustainable design group project blog online today, which is really what prompted me to get this one started. “reSACK” was just supposed to be a placeholder name until we thought of something better, but it was so well received during our initial presentation that it stuck. Oh well, I guess that means it’s time to start coming up with logos for it then.

reSACK logo idea 1

In other news, Doug and I got “design cock blocked” today when we discovered that the guy who hired us to redesign his site didn’t actually have permission to do so from the community he had licensed it from. We might be able to change the header slightly but it seems like that’s about it.

Buffalo Grapevine logo redesign 1

I still need to come up with something for Ben’s inanimate object political campaign. I have a fall-back idea involving a smear campaign, but for an assignment which was practically written for me, I don’t want to have to settle for a reserve idea. Hopefully I’ll manage to come up with something in the shower tomorrow. That’s where I get all of my best ideas, really.