#RedesigningNE; Academy 360

Academy 360 is a local school that normally looks exactly like every other school so I thought that it needed a a fresh look. Something simple and straightforward; no slogans about multiculturalism or quotes about how good it is as a school. bare bones and nice to look at.



#RedesigningNE; Fish Alive

Fish alive; what a company name. Cue clip art fish, cue the bubbles from fish tank, blue colours. At least the last one is true. Doing animal related things can get very cliché very quickly so have decided to avoid most of them here. Implying is the key.

#RedesigningNE; Rapid Windows

A little bit of a 70's retro vibe here in a bit to show motion. The simple addition of an italic typeface was not enough so I thought the best way to show something rapid is to show the motion in the form of  repeating type. You don't always need to show the thing the company does. Hence the lack of windows.

#RedesigningNE; Grill N Chill(i)

I done goofed here. I miss read the name of this company by one letter. It's Grill N Chill not Grill and Chilli but if anyone wants to name a restaurant you can have this logo drop me an email and I am sure I can sell you this little beauty.

#RedesigningNE; Durham Box Company

Genuinely one of my favourite logos from the project. Clever and simple; thats what all logos really need to be. Paul Rand hit this nail on it's head so many times. A box replacing the helvetica O that would of taken it's place; what more do you need.

Jobs and Albums

As I approach my 50th job applied for since leaving university I thought I would right something meaningful and exciting about it but I don't want to bore you with that. All you need to know is out of 50;
2 interviews
2 unsuccessful interviews
2 bits of half hearted feedback
just over ten job rejections
just under 40 no responders (that's not even a word, jam) at all

Now for something more exciting; the music press do it so I thought I would take the time two as well.The BEST albums of the year SO FAR...

It's been a mixed bag to say the least. Albums that I had hight hopes for; Savages: Adore Life, Fat White Family: Songs for our Mothers & ABC: Lexicon of Love II failed to reach the high watermark that I expected from the hype. Although some of the singles were great; Viva Love by ABC was infectious.

Albums that I thought would be rubbish were indeed rubbish; Life of Pablo by Kanye West give me one of the best tracks of the year but a rubbish album tooo many ideas in one album. Dis-functional is a good way to describe it. I found I could get into Rosin Murphy, The Invisble, even Radiohead. Don't Mention Primal Scream. Please. Just don't.

BEST list now and some great pieces of work (three word challenge);

1. Metronomy; Summer 08; summery electro pop
2. David Bowie (RIP); Blackstar; Perfect send off
3. Iggy Pop; Post Pop Depression; "The Idiot" returns
4. Steve Mason; Meet the Humans; Delightful cinematic pop
5. Underworld; Barbara Barbara, We Face a Shining Future; Designers make dance
6. Parquet Courts; Human Performance; Accessible Garage rock
7. The Kills; Ash and Ice; Alternative pop tunes 
8. There are probably more that I have forgotten about
9. Note to self; update this list some time
10. James? You got that? 

#RedesigningNE; BB Coffee and Muffins

Tried to be a little but smart with this one. Instead of directly showing a coffee bean; i've implied it by flipping the letter B so that the two of them to imply a bean. It's a key in branding to be a bit smart without under/over estimating your target audience's knowledge of the Vernacular.

#RedesigningNE; Bags of Bags

Bags. Love them, hate them but they are bought and some are bought at bag shops. Bags of Bags is one such shop. The idea for the logo was to imply variety of bag without showing a bag. So have different colours and different cases to denote this.

#RedesigningNE; Wade Opticians

Something a bit different. Words wearing glasses. I don't think it's conventional by any means, it's not professional which is what you'd want an optician to be but with out a design brief making it need to be them things; that's what I did.

#RedesigningNE; Orbital Aerials

 

Orbital; Great band. Shame they have nothing to do with an aerial company from the north east. Taking a typeface used a lot by aerial companies; Impact, and turning it around. The O was meant to be the orbit around the aerial and to make that fit. It had to be turned around to accommodate it. 

#RedesigningNE; Tree Tops Nursery

Children's nurseries do tend to have design laden with clip art and bright colours; so I decided to subvert that and smarted it up. Strip it back so you are not being overwhelmed by colour or comic sans.

#RedesigningNE; Terry the Painter

Terry was a painter,
He didn't have an advert,
So I put his name on a bucket,
now he can put it on his shirt.

#RedesigningNE; Skip Hire

Chester Le Street Skip Hire; Clean, simple and character filled. As well as different. Different to me is a good thing. If you look like your competition; you will blend in and people may as well just choose your competitor. Get something different and it will catch your eye.

#RedesigningNE; Introduction

Last week was my holiday; well it was a week of my life void of doing any work. So to fill the void of any real work I started a project. Yay! I came up with the idea while packing away my uni stuff and moving out or in the shower; I can't remember.

The project I started called; Redesigning Home. I decided to take it upon myself to redesign various companies in the North East. It was just going to be Sunderland but the source was the Durham and Wearside phone book. Typical.

I managed 57 logos in 5 days. *STAT ALERT*

Over the course of the next few weeks you will be seeing these logos bi-daily from tomorrow. Hope you enjoy them. Here is a sneaky peak!

 More #RedesigningNE Designs can be found here