Tuesday 14 October 2014

Whiskey Elements Logo Finals & Evaluation

Whiskey Elements Logo Finals & Evaluation 

Concept 
Whiskey Elements are a company that sell a bespoke product that offers the buyer the opportunity to customize the taste of there whiskey through "whiskey elements". Pieces of wood with a range of flavors and characteristics that can create a 3 year taste enhancement in 24 hours making your average whiskey taste a great deal nicer.

There strap line for this product is Time & Oak so I used this as the main point of text for the logo and playing off the term Time & Oak provided the main influence of presenting a contemporary twist on traditional aesthetics.

The concept behind this versatile & customizable logo system was a simple one, to create a logo that expressed the company "Whiskey Elements" Heritage through a logo inspired by Portland Oregon's government seal & traditional whiskey branding aesthetics.

The aesthetic of the logo is one based on suggestive logos, the circular element can be interpreted as a birds eye view of a whiskey barrel outline as well as an icon inspired by the Portland Oregon seal, a way in which two elements of traditionally and heritage come together. One from the place of origin of the product and another based on the traditional production process of the whiskey drink. The use of sans serif typography comes from influence of traditional whiskey branding.

The products main promotion point is to customize the users drink, enhancing flavor and characteristics of the drink, to support this I created a logo system with a series of icons that allowed versatility and customisatiation depending on the logos positioning across the brand range, 12 variations are available in both black and outline versions.

Finals
Here are examples of how the logo looks printed and digitized with supporting products that make use of the logo system in its various visual forms. Working on Neutral browns and creams with contrasting red coming from  an influence from traditional whiskey color schemes. 

Highlighted in red are potential used for the logo across a proposed range of products across a possible brand proposal. Or if I had more time to test the logos out in different finishes and techniques.

Outline Variation
  • Good for use on bottles and more subtle addition to products.
  • Good for window signage. 
  • Good for engraving, embossing, foiling. Would be all possibilities if I had time to carry these out. 
  


 

Black Variation
  • Creates high impact
  • Would make a good ink stamp or wax seal to link back to were the aesthetics of the logo came from (Portland Oregon Seal)
  • Works well when a higher contrast is needed.
 


 

Examples of logo in context of a product range
To show the adaptability of the customizable logo system I positioned the logo onto a selection of products that would suit a potential brand extension taking forward the logo onto other contexts. My personal favorite is the subtle addition of the 'whiskey element' icon on the wooden mock ups of the elements them selves. Showing the icons work without there circular surround and typography. 
 


 


Evaluation
I could go into a large amount of detail on the success of the logo when it comes to aspects of its application onto other products, but thats not the main evaluative point here. My main focus is to evaluate the logo system in its purist form solo.

But on that note I am happy how the logo system turned out on a few examples of many contexts it could be applied on. I am definitely going to send the logo onto the creator to see what he thinks, I feel it has lots of potential for an actual branding project rather than just a proposal I am creating.

Quality
The quality of the final logo is satisfactory, aesthetically it looks good and presents my intended concept well and I love the customization ability of it through the icon imagery system and the black & outline versions. So creating a customisable logo to express the products claims is something I achieved here, I also feel I achieved the visualization of a contemporary spin on heritage and traditionally with good links back to the Portland Oregon seal and this aspect was one of the most positive pieces of feedback as whiskey branding tends to follow a very cliche route everything looks the same with the serif type and type only logos, I created something quite different. Although I kept the typical cream, brown tones and red colour scheme when printed onto colour stock to keep that feeling of heritage and traditionally as these colors have been used for years. 

Typographically I feel the use of a serif typeface in this case Big Caslon helped express elements of traditionally & heritage and works well alongside the contemporary aesthetic icons and vector image making techniques and simplistic icon images. This keeps that element of a contemporary twist on tradition & heritage strong. 

Materials & Process
The materials & process I used were obviously very limited, the logo was created in adobe illustrator a simple vector construction that derived from initial sketches my preferred method of working to perfect a piece of design Im happy with that. 

But If I had the time to take this forward I would really have liked to play around with alot of materials and process's. The use of wood and laser cutting the logo onto it would have been really cool to show a traditional aesthetic but with the use of a laser cutting machine bringing in that contemporary twist. 

Embossing. Embossing the outline logo onto a glass or a piece of print material would have looked nice, a nice subtle suggestion of the logo that doesn't need to be intrusive. 

Engraving the logo onto the whiskey stones, again leaving a subtle suggestion of the logo behind would have been a really nice finish.

Other materials could have been used over the whole brand production and would have been really considered If i could go forward with it, wooden boxes, vinyl stickers for window signage, glass bottles to be included in an overall kit to transfer in pre aged whiskeys that have already used the whiskey elements, use of stone or marble taking influence from traditional whiskey stones. 

The only limit to this would be time, but these kind of thoughts on  materials and process are going to be put on the back burner for future projects that may bare relevance for there use, apart from a simple easy to use website I feel the digital side of this wasn't important as the traditional whiskey drinker wouldn't be after a big technical rebrand he/she wants traditional products and promotions. 

If time allowed these logos would have made an amazing stamp or even a traditional brass wax seal stamper. That would have been really cool but maybe expensive for the brass wax seal stamper?

Time Limitations & Improvements
A week seemed enough time to do this brief at first but as usual I overthought the whole process and created more work for myself that was needed, I think I did ok in the time frame but if I had more time I would have liked to experiment with more considered use of typography to present that tradition whiskey branding style in a more unique way.

Try out different image making techniques, maybe some analogue images would have fit the concept of tradition more?

All the above would been nice to do if I had the time but more consideration into colour experimentation would have been good, I like the colors I used to interact with the logos but I feel experimenting with different tones, and maybe even textures would have created a stronger outcome. 

I should have experimented with further customization of the logo, trying out how the icons worked by themselves, or with just typography and the icon without the ring around them. This all could have created a more versatile logo system.

Due to time limitations I didn't go through my usual design idea generation stage, I usually sketch over 50 mock ups but I had to get a idea out quick for the interim crit within a day so this wasn't possible. Next time I will create more rough ideas to take elements from each to create a more developed logo. 

Commercial considerations to production methods & process's 
We are lucky enough to have amazing facilities at our disposal so most of the suggested process's I mentioned could have been carried out, but one that would have to be outsourced is the creation of a wax stamper, traditionally made of brass and if I want to keep this traditional feel I would really need to consider the use of relevant materials. 

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