- When creating logo design, or any design for that matter,
it can really help to undertake visual research.
Undertaking visual research can inspire us
when we are feeling uncreative
or when we are lacking in direction.
In logo design, visual research can help clarify
and shape our ideas.
And be a huge source of inspiration
and help for when we come to design our logos
later in the design process.
Visual research can help narrow down our thinking
and help us focus on what we want to do.
Over the past few videos,
we have been looking at ways to generate ideas
to base our logo design on.
Once we have a clear direction on what creative territories
we are going to base our logo design on,
we could start putting pen to paper
and start sketching out some ideas.
But a good thing I like to do before that
is undertake some visual research
to inspire my creativity further.
In this video, I'm going to demonstrate a technique
I use to gain visual research to inspire at my logo design.
So let's get into it.
(upbeat music)
So here I am with my design process checklist.
Once adequate time has been spent considering
my creative territories
and planning what to look into for my visual research,
we can now move into the fifth and final step in phase one.
So the fifth step in the discovery phase is visual research.
Now we have a clear creative direction
which came out of the previous brainstorming session,
we can now move on to visual research.
At this stage we are still holding off starting
the process of generating creative solutions,
but just looking for some added visual inspiration.
In this step, we want to look into all the points
we listed in our creative direction
to explore and discover
all the potential visual possibilities
to inspire potential ideas.
For step five, visual research and inspiration,
I would recommend you undertake three tasks.
Task one, collect visual research,
task two, look at reference books,
and task three, organize and print.
So when it comes to logo design,
I always like to start by researching symbols, icons
and images that relates to the themes I have identified
in the brainstorming session.
And this starts with my creative direction document.
So here I have my creative direction document open
that I completed in the previous video.
In this step, I outlined three key creative territories
I want to design a logo around.
If you want to follow along,
you can get the creative direction doc
from the Course Folder.
The Course Folder comes
with my complete logo design solution
I will be demonstrating on this course,
including all my design example files and documents
at each step to aid your learning experience.
The folder also comes with design resources,
such as a logo design process checklist,
process documents and templates,
a project folder structure,
color sample chart,
and a logo proposal document example.
All of which you can not only learn from,
but use in your own design process.
To get the full learning experience
and use the resources to help develop your own logo project,
I recommend you get the Course Folder.
Download link with instructions is in the description.
So with the Course Folder open,
click into the Design Process Example folder,
click into folder one, Learn & Discovery,
into folder six, Creative Direction,
and click on the Illustrator doc labeled Creative Direction
and you will have the same document I have open here.
So on page two, you can see what I want to look into
with regards to visual research for each territory.
Normally on a project, I may look into three routes
for a logo design,
but for the sake of time
and to demonstrate my process clearly,
I'm only going to demonstrate one territory.
So for creative territory one, the title is "Lovin' It".
And the idea here is a celebration
of one of the strongest emotions of euphoria, love.
Euphoria is a place where people experience love
for dance music, live music, pumping beats,
shared experience and community.
For what I want to look into,
I have a list of symbols I want to research.
Here I want to research symbols for euphoria,
love and passion, rhythm, pulse, and dance.
And for the look and feel,
this suggests my initial idea
for what I want this territory to look like.
For creative territory one,
I want this one to be bold and impactful
and use clean and clear typefaces.
With my list I can now begin with the first task.
One, collect visual research.
Now, the aim here is to look for research
that reflects on your idea and what you think feels right
and appropriate for your project.
Now, typically on a project,
I will start my visual research at my desk
or out in the field at a library
or at a location of interest.
Here, I'll collect images of the internet,
take photos out and about
or scan material I find in books, magazines, and so on.
As I discover and collect my images,
I'll be sure to place them neatly in my project folder
to organize later.
So whatever images I find,
I'll save them in the project folder.
Into folder one, Learn and Discovery,
into folder seven, Visual Research,
and into the Found Images folder.
Now, as well as looking online for visual inspiration,
you can also consider looking at logo books.
Now some designers choose to look at books and some don't.
You may feel you don't want to be influenced
by someone else's work
and that is totally up to you.
However, I find sometimes it's good
to look at reference books
as they can be a great source of inspiration.
When I am aware of the direction I am going in,
I like to look at various books to see any examples
that may be in the same ballpark.
It can help to see which style
may be appropriate for my design.
Now it's important to mention that I am in no way trying
to copy or plagiarize the work I find during my research.
The idea is to be inspired
and get the feel of something I'd like to create.
Sometimes this helps because it's good to see
what not to do.
If I eventually create a logo design
that is already established,
I'll make sure to try and avoid that.
Now, personally, I have a series of logo books,
which can be great for reference and inspiration here.
These are of course optional,
but a few I own and find are great for inspiration
are "Logo Modernism", "Letters as Symbols",
"Logotype",
"Symbol: The Reference Guide to Abstract
"and Figurative Trademarks",
and "Logo: The Reference Guide to Symbols Logotypes".
If you want to take a closer look at these,
be sure to check out the equipment page
on the PDF document that accompanies this course.
Now, I like to flick through these quickly
and if I see anything that's interesting,
I'll take a picture on my camera
and make sure I save it to the Project Folder
to my Found Images folder.
So once I have found lots of images and reference material,
I then like to organize and print reference material.
So next, I like to edit and sort through
all my visual research so it's clear to see.
These can also be referred to as mood boards.
Now, I either place my images together in Photoshop,
Illustrator, or sometimes InDesign,
where I can place in my research samples
and arrange them in a grid on pages like so.
The idea here is to just compose them onto sheets
so they are organized and easy to print out.
So with the Course Folder open,
click into the Design Process Example folder,
click into folder one, Learn & Discovery,
into folder seven, Visual Research,
and click on the Illustrator doc
labeled Example Visual Research.
And you will have the same document I have open here.
So here you can see the visual research
I have done for my creative territory.
Here you can see it spans over six pages
and I have organized it as follows:
On the first page,
I have some icons and symbols relating to euphoria, love
and passion.
When researching I also found these cool images
of stick people dancing.
On the third page,
I have some icons and symbols
regarding electric dance music.
On the fourth page, I have some icons and symbols
I thought felt more organic
relating to more euphoric emotion.
And on the fifth and sixth page,
I have some logo examples I found
which I feel are in the same ballpark and style
I'd like to develop my logo in.
I liked how these examples use layers and bars
to represent depth of emotion.
And they also feel quite rhythmic,
which is what I had in mind
for potential logo design myself.
So I felt quite inspired by these.
In this video, I demonstrated my visual research
from my cricket territory.
Now, you are welcome to follow along with my example,
but if you're following along with this course
and you have already undertaken
the previous creative direction step,
I would recommend you undertake your own visual research.
So if you're following along with your own logo design,
take a pause and carry out your process.
Before moving on,
undertake the same process I have just demonstrated,
but collect visual research appropriate
to your creative territory.
Remember, you will be able to use this
later when you come to design your own logo
later in the design process.
Once you have undertaken your own visual research,
let's continue.
So with my visual research organized,
I can either keep it on my computer to come back to later
or I can print it out.
With my illustrator dot complete,
I come up to File, Save As,
I'll change the format to PDF,
then I'll navigate into my project folder,
and into the top folder Project Wall,
I'll click into folder one, Learn and Discovery,
and save the file as a visual research.
And this will create an easy document
which I can easily print out or refer back to later.
Now, I love printing out my visual research
and placing it onto my project wall.
I find it really inspiring to surround myself
with my found research
as this makes it much easier
to glance at during my design process to keep me focused.
So this brings us to the end of the discovery phase
of the logo design process.
By this point, we should have some really cool ideas
with some very clear direction
on what we want to design a logo around.
Now, it's time to get creative
and move into the next phase of the design process.
Phase two, design visual concepts.
With all our ideas and visual research in place,
I now like to put pen to paper
and start to come up with my designs for my logo.
Now, up to this point I have been putting all my work
onto what I call a project wall
as you can see here behind me.
This gives me maximum flexibility to spread all my work out
to fully immerse myself in my development.
Now, before we jump into the next phase of the project
and start to design our logo,
I just want to quickly show you my project wall
and discuss why I would recommend you get one too.
So see you in the next video.
(upbeat music)