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Brief

The information contained in this post is an overview to the process followed to create the logo and the iPhone app icon for the brand CallPlease LLC. All the sources and graphic elements used in this process such as sketches, reference image, and names were created and selected based on the company’s background and other important aspects provided by the client through a questionnaire.

Mind - Mapping

This mind-map was created with the objective to extract useful information provided by the client, since I was working with 3 different points of view (Gregg Fienberg, Rhys Ryan and Gabe Hobson), I have extracted the main aspect from each one and then try to get the possible connections between them to obtain a common point of view that will help me to create the right concept.

I have created this mind map using a cool application called Bubbl

Research and Conceptualization

Since I have to create a visual identity for the brand, one of the task is to create an concept that can be used as a iPhone app icon, that Is why I have made some research based on the visual appearance desired by the customer, clean and simple with a professional feeling and easy to understand, there are thousand of iphone icons and is hard to guess what are tue best concept, but here we can get an idea about some shapes and proportions.

While I was reading the questionnaire, creating the mind-map, making connection between keywords, browsing iphone apps, moving words, etc, I went really involved with the project and a lot of ideas came on top of my head, then, I have a small tough about the project, this concept could take two different directions. The first option is: The brand name is really good, nothing to guess about the company’s service, “CallPlease”, really simple and meaningful, so what if I create a visual concept focused on the name, a symbol that meet the same characteristics, clear, simple and meaningful? My Second thought was: Since the name is really specific maybe the client wants to represent aspect of the company such as communication, boss and assistant contact, connection, interactivity, etc. and at this point the questionnaire will be the main source for inspiration and sketching. Let’s do it, I will start working with the first option, Create a visual concept based on the brand name “CallPlease”. Looking for logos that represent its name literally, I found an interesting blog named “Literally”, but what had my attention was a quote on the header that said: “Some of the best logos are obvious, that’s what makes them resilient.” - MICHAEL BIERUT. Lets see some of the logos featured there.

It is clear these are great logos, but all of them represent objects, elements that in some way exist physically; apple, shell, puma, cross, target, Bell, etc. But what is “CallPlease” the closer element to this words combination is a phone icon, Is this a good symbol? It means “CallPlease” literally? Good try, but this is not what I’m looking for. Why the phone icon can’t be used as a “literally” representation for CallPlease? Well because this combiantion of words more than a objet represents an action. Lets go back to the mind-map. This area helped a lot to get the right solution, I found some important keywords to create the concept: phone, calls, hand, mouth, ear and human interaction, in addition “Call Please” is an expression used thousand of times every single day around the world.

Is there any visual element or symbol that could help me to represent Call Please?

Sketching

Here we have some sketches that will help me to achieve the concept that I want to transmit. It is important to keep in mind that what are we creating is an icon, the key here is to transmit the concept as a simple is possible, make a detailed draw it is the a easy way, but not a good symbol at all. The idea with this random sketching is to experiment different ways to represent the “CallPlease” gesture expresed in the pictures showed in the previews slide. The option #4 and #18 could help to represent the idea, the option #5 uses the hand icon closed to the “C” , this could be an interesting experiment, but I wasn’t sure yet.

Computer Generation and Rendering

Here we have some vectorized ideas, not color, Here I’m testing some shapes and the company’s name, I suggest to start the logo with lower “c” I understand for grammatical rulers the client use to write “CallPlease”, but if we see the “a” is trapped between five tall letters. We should use a typography celar and simple. after different test, these fonts are the best to represent the brand name Myriad Pro, Helvetica and Century Gothic.

Proposal presented to the client

The hand symbol fits perfectly inside the iPhone app box, it is the perfect support for the brand name, the color on the icon should get the same color on the work “call” to establish a direct relation between these elements .

In the following images you will see the logo symbol in color, combined with the company’s name. There is some small variations on the color. This is to give you a better idea how the logo looks in different applications and devices and help to make a decision about the direction we should take to create the final version.

Modifications after client Feedback

The clients really liked the concept proposed, but they wanted a better representation of the hand to transmit the idea in a direct way. We spoke about nails, modify the hand shape, use the application colors and other options represented in this page.