In this post, I’m going to take a recent design that I’ve added to my portfolio and show the evoloution from conception to a completed design. Let’s get to work:

The client, velocIT, is an IT company. With a name like velocIT, the first thoughts that came to mind were movement and speed. I began with some simple sketches and found myself being drawn to the use of arrows. So I opened up Illustrator and went to work:

1 - First, I drew a quick arrow. I launched Photoshop and used one of the pre-made shapes…then copied & pasted it into Illustrator.

2 - Second I used the pen tool and drew a triangle shape over the top of the arrow to create a “V - like” shape. Once the “V” was made, I rotated the arrow accordingly.

3 - On further inspection, I felt like the “V” arrow had too much weight, so I simply made the white triangle larger.

4 - At this point, I choose a font and started to integrate the “V” with the rest of the company name.

5 - To give more of a separation of the “IT” from the rest of the name, I made the letters bold. This also gives a more balanced feel to the design, countering the weight of the arrow on the other side.

6 - After integrating the arrow and the bold ‘IT’, the other text looked rather plain. So after a lot of experimentation, I ended up using a different font.

7 - Once the text was in place, I began to experiment with a few variations on the arrow.

8 - After sleeping on it, and getting some feedback from others…this is the final arrow that I decided on.

9 - This is the final arrow incorporated into the logo text.

As I said in my post on about my design process, I only add color once my design is finished. If you’re design has to have color to stand, then its probably not a very strong concept. Initially, the buyer said that he likes orange and blue. In the final design, I decided on a light orange and teal blue. When adding the color, I was careful to add a small amount of teal to the arrow to give an added sense of balance. I’ve also added a reflection as a bit of “eye-candy” and to bring attention to the “V” icon. If you look closely you will also notice that I’ve added a very small amount of negative space between the tail of the arrow and the “V”. Here is the final result:

Hope you’ve enjoyed this post, and I will probably do something similar in the near future. I’ll be sure not to throw my sketches away so that you can see those as well. Happy creating!