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When I was asked to develop a new logo for All About US by Josephine Rollings; founder of All About US, I knew I had my work cut out for me because the organisation is not a typical enterprise, however, I was also equally as excited for the challenge. Especially since the old logo (which I also designed some years ago shown in [Fig. 2]) was looked over by a ‘specialist’ who broke down what was wrong with it, what was right with and how it could be improved. When Josephine gave me the specialist's feedback, I listened intently and took on board what was said although none of what was said was later used in the development of the new logo.

 

I have previously worked on other areas of All About US (AAU) which ranged from book compilation and cover design, poster designs, event flyer designs and more recently, the AAU website as well so I was already aware what All About US stood for. In a nutshell, AAU the depiction of reality of the inhabitants within society and its aims and objectives is to effectively bring to attention what injustices are faced by these inhabitants, especially the vulnerable, and the forgotten. AAU’s purpose is to understand these injustices and thereby formulating a plan to bring justice to these inhabitants.  With that said, Josephine Rollings can be described as a teacher, a backbone, a support system and most of all, an activist in addressing the problems of the modern inner-city society.  With all this in mind, I was ready to get started but where would I start?

 

Being asked to redesign this logo was like having a second chance to prove my worth as a logo designer. Forgive me in advance but the improvement is clear. In fact, I am ashamed to show the original one I designed some years back. I'm sure some of you can understand why I feel this way.

 

The logo design process for AAU has been a relatively long journey because it took several renditions, trials and mistrials to arrive at the current edition which I've dubbed as The Omega Design (typically the title given to designs I have completed and happy). It started off with ideas of being inclusive of the typical demographics of the UK's Capital City; a relatively hard task by anyone's standards because if you've ever been to London or seen depictions of London town's inhabitants (temporary and permanent), you'd know that it has a wide demographics.

 

Here’s a little insight into what All About US represents. First and foremost, the 'US' stands for 'Understanding Society'. When I first met Josephine Rollings, some few years ago now, it was initially called 'Unjust Society' but as developments occur on a daily basis with all things which is all in the name of progress, the name has since changed but the message is exactly the same (as are the goals). The reason for the change as far as I understood it to be was regarding the supposed 'negative connotations' surrounding the term 'unjust society'.

 

All About US is a modern, growing entity that addresses the many problems typically found in inner-city environments through the workshops it offers, and through the vehicles these workshops are delivered in; the poetries.

 

With all good design methodologies, preliminary sketching is a key tool in ideating designs.  I will lay out my design notes later in this article demonstrating the concept and elements that aided me in the completion of this logo.

 

I initially wrote out how I thought the lettering would look good as depicted here [Fig 3].  I wrote it out in various forms; with spacing, without spacing, in lower capitals, in upper capitals, underlined and not underlined just to see which worked best.  The idea I had in mind for the font was a ‘no-nonsense’ and firm font.  The font that I felt best demonstrates this is Century Gothic (all thanks to Monotype Imaging for creating this font).

 

Notice how solid the letters look and sits in a rigid fashion without any fancy, loose ‘bits’ (a very “we mean business” font) however, the roundness of the letters shows that the use of this font suggests ‘being in touch’ and is inclusive rather than exclusive; after all, it’s ‘all about us’.  I decided to type the letters in lower capitals for the sheer smoothness of the lettering and also to appeal to a wider range of people; it looks warmer and friendlier.  The rounds of the letters were actually round like a circle and the straights of the letters were actual straight lines. It was not misleading at all.

 

As with all designs, if the idea doesn’t hit you straight away, you need to keep etching at the stone of idea, chip-by-chip until the masterpiece begins to emerge.  The humble beginnings of the new logo which did not make sense to me idea-wise are shown here.

 

These two sets of logo sketches shown in [Fig. 4] and [Fig. 5] did not make it. There are others which didn’t make it either but not shown here but you might see it peering through at the top-left corner of [Fig. 9].

 

This particular sketch [Fig. 6] made sense to me so I decided to explore it.  I decided I would not show any of my sketches to the client until I had something solid to show because when I was first asked to design this logo, my client said I should do what I thought would suit her company as she didn’t have any ideas at the time and she “trusted my design skills”.  This sort of request will put anyone under pressure because it means what is produced has to be liked as you’ve been entrusted to design “something good”.  On the other hand, this sort of request does make you validated as a good designer as well so I was up for the challenge.

 

At this stage, I was not particularly schooled in the imagery depiction of society.  My closest understanding was an A-Level Sociology class where all I had learnt in two years had to be demonstrated in a three-hour exam many moons ago which consisted of several schools of thought.  From this point, I new I had to do more research; elements of my findings are laid out below in my design notes.

Design Notes: AAU

The Maple Leaf: This is the representation of 'society' according to FB. Without going too deep into sociological theories as this is an investigation for visual representation, my research landed me inexcusably in a borrowed idea of what society is. Being that ‘society’ is a non-tangible entity, it can be signified in many ways and other cultures have done that. The one that stood out the most is the famous maple leaf of Canada which is a national symbol on their flag. Interestingly, my research took me to the works of author Harold Cardinal in his book 'Unjust Society: The Tragedy of Canada's Indians' which resonates an identical name to the original meaning of AAU. Having read a little into the background of Cardinal's regime to protect the rights of Native Canadians, I was instantly drawn into the idea of the maple leaf.

 

Do you recall my sketch [Fig. 6] above which I wanted to focus on?  The more I looked at this design, the more I became clearer that I wanted to follow this design through; however, as with all things explorative, deviations are typical. The next image depicted [Fig. 8] was the deviation but this came after my affinity of the maple leaf syndrome.  I knew deep down I wasn’t going to settle with this [Fig. 8] and that my chosen concept [Fig. 7] would be the one to follow through with so I returned to it.  I was convicted to this design.

It is depicted here [Fig. 9] with some modifications.  The maple leaf is used to represent society hence why I placed it on the head of the ‘figure’.

 

The Symbol: I decided to do a logo with a distinct separate feature that can be used as a symbol without the text should my client wish to do so.  This would allow for it to be recognisable even if there was no text surrounding it at all. 

 

The Figure: The ‘figure’ itself acts as the crossing of the letter 'A' with the arms spread wide across to indicate ‘inclusivity’ which is what makes up society; the formation of a people and the acceptance of what makes up these people effectively is a society. With the arms of the figure spread out, each hand is holding a scale which symbolises the justness within the society (which is what AAU is trying to achieve). The needle-point of the feet of the figure is meant to show that society stands as one in a very precise form but with a sturdy body.

 

The Scales: These are there to demonstrate the term ‘justice’ which addresses the ‘unjust’ or ‘injustice’ in society.  I toyed with the idea of having the scales at different levels to show imbalance but later decided against it because the AAU organisation doesn’t want to represent ‘injustice’ or ‘unjust’ but rather address it so I stuck with the scales being balanced.  Again, I made the tip of the hands pin point to resemble precision (precisely addressing the injustices of society).

 

The Letter ‘A’: The letter ‘A’ encompassing the scales and the maple leaf is there for that very reason; to encompass the whole of society and it also equates the word “ALL” in the name of the organisation.

 

Solid Line:  The dark horizontal solid line is placed underneath especially to demonstrate the stability of AAU as a balanced organisation as shown [Fig. 11].

 

The Colouring: I decided to focus the design colours on variations of black in different opacities, thus making black the base colour; the minimal use of varying colours has more impact which makes it easier to interchange if applying on light or dark backgrounds.

The maple leaf and the base of the scales are dark because they are a core element (society) of the logo.  The words “ALL” and “US” are also dark for this same reason.

 

At this stage, I was ready to show my client the design so I sent the various renditions along with my design notes. The initial feedback I received was that “it is excellent and looks solid”.  However, as with all decision-making processes goes, time is needed and a ‘select committee’ must be consulted (friends, colleagues and that ‘specialist’ I mentioned earlier) to draw out the pros and cons in order to make the decision.  The feedback I received overall was that it was a good design but the maple leaf was heavily scrutinized as it had “a strong connotation to Canada” thus the ‘maple leaf syndrome’ was born.

 

This meant, ‘back to the drawing board’; effectively, more sketching just to see what can be done to remedy this syndrome.  I immediately removed the leaf and replaced it with a circle of relatively the same size.  It seemed that was enough [Fig. 12].

 

I rendered both and set them side by side [Fig. 13] then resent it as I was secretly convinced my maple leaf

idea was great in the hope they’d change their mind and revert to the maple leaf design.  One thing about design is that ideas and taste will vary and no matter how sound you think your ideas are or great your taste is, you do need to listen to the client but with gentle suggestions as to what else might work.  In the end, the client wants what they want.  I was fixated on the maple leaf and it pained me gravely to have to let it go.  As expected, and to my worst nightmare (or so it felt at the time), the ‘circle head’ was chosen over the maple leaf.  Clearly, I had exuded an ounce too much passion into this logo to feel such affinity towards the maple leaf design.

 

The Omega Design: With the circle design as the definitive, I polished it up, solidified any ‘mess’, ensured all the spacing were equal and the elements were symmetrical.  

Now, it became 'the omega design' [Fig. 14].  I then saved it in the various formats, (raw .AI, JPEG and PNG as my client didn’t require other formats) with resolution of 300 dpi and dimensions of 2500px by 2500px and shipped it off to the client.  I always save logos in raw vector formats so that if it is scaled up or down (change dimensions), it maintains the quality and it isn’t pixelated; a term here which means to become grainy or ‘blocky’ around the edges which resemble graphics from a Commodore C64 (an 8-Bit home computer from the 1980s).

This was a journey I enjoyed and I welcome you to share your thoughts and comments by using the form below.  Thank you!

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