Over the past few weeks, maybe even over a month, I've been
working on a logo design redesign.
Something that I love to do is to redesign the logos that are
posted to our subreddit.
That's where I critique all the work that you've put up there.
And if I see a logo design that I've think I could do either
better or have a different take on it, I'll go ahead and give it a go.
But recently, you guys wanted me to show you more of the
behind the scenes of how I actually do this, how I get one
concept and how I get a different style of concept, or
where my thought process comes from.
As you know, about 90, I think 99% of logo design and graphic
design in general happen up here in the brain.
The 1% happens on the screen.
So hopefully today I'll be able to give you the 1%, if not, hopefully more.
Throughout the whole process. I saw this logo called Fibonacci.
And it really intrigued me.
It was this Fibonacci security logo, I had no context to it, but
again, it was a cyber security company.
It's fictional, it's not real.
And I thought, I'm going to give it a stab.
I love the Fibonacci sequence, the golden mean, the golden ratio.
I love the mystical side of it.
It's kind of weird.
If you don't know about the Fibonacci sequence, watch my
video down below.
Designers and architects and artists use it all the time.
The first thing I do is research.
I wanted to research if this company or the fake company
was real or if whether there's a company that's like it.
And I couldn't find one.
But what I did find is that Fibonacci is used in cybersecurity.
Now, the original logo wasn't bad at all.
It was actually really good.
So this made more of a challenge for myself.
I wanted to see what I could do differently for them.
So after researching a bit, I went ahead and made some notes
and I did this mind map.
Mind mapping is a huge part of logo design because you're
creating connections that other people otherwise wouldn't.
It's very hard to be unique nowadays in creating a logo design.
So you need to find connections.
And I talk a bit more about that in our SkillShare original
class, which is linked below.
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Things that I've put on my mind map are sort of things like
tech, VPN company, cybersecurity, scanning through files and
using keywords, maybe phrases that I might use with cybersecurity.
Also with the Fibonacci sequence golden mean, the rule of thirds,
the Big Brother, the kind of ominous nature of Fibonacci swirls.
You can see that this guy who created or girl who created the
last logo, the original one, they used something similar.
Brainstorming, ideas and mind mapping, different keywords and
phrases and finding connections is very important.
The second part is also just as important, which is mood boarding.
Essentially what they allow you to do is the opposite of what a
mind map does.
It gives you the visuals and a feeling rather than straight up
information or connections of words. From a mood board
you get the general mood of the project, you get the colours and
you get to see what's appropriate around this brand.
Now, I found out a few things about this.
I found that most security company logos are very generic
and they all have these sort of like shields or passcodes within them.
They love the colour blue as well.
From this point on, I realized it was going to be a bit of a
challenge because how do you create a security logo or
a cybersecurity logo without using any of these shapes that
everyone knows is associated with cybersecurity?
Now it's time to look at the sketching stage, which is really important.
This is where I just spew ideas.
It's kind of like vomiting onto the paper.
Anything just to clear my mind from any preconceived ideas
that I might just tunnel vision into.
The first idea I had was obviously using the golden
spiral within the design.
I wanted to get the Fibonacci style in there.
It needed to be a part of the design.
So I did a bit of research and I worked out what could be used
as a golden spiral.
And I had this brainwave when drawing that I could use a thumbprint design
and kind of make it into a golden spiral,
into this unique shape, which makes a logo.
So I created these shields and the shield was going to have a
thumbprint inside it and I knew the thumbprint was going to be
a bit tricky to do on such a simplistic scale.
You might have seen the thumbprint designs from Apple
and Touch ID.
If you just search on Google, you'll find loads of thumbprint designs.
And the cool thing about thumbprint is actually
everyone's thumbprint is in accordance to the golden ratio as well.
I didn't even know that, that further incentivised me to keep
on this direction.
So that's directional concept number one.
The second concept was using a key.
Now, cybersecurity is all about having the keys to the kingdom of something.
You have a passcode, keys, something that's locked and secure.
Now, I wanted to see what I could do with the key.
I wanted the golden ratio spiral to be in there also.
So I started drawing out some ideas where I would use the
spiral as the handle for the key.
Normally, at this point, I would have just scrapped the idea
but I wanted to show you why I did that or why I would scrap it.
So I carried on.
Normally in this process, when I draw an idea that I know flat
out will not work, I will get rid of the idea.
I would just stop working on it.
I would maybe take a record of it or a picture, upload it to my
computer so I know that in my presentation to a client that
I can explain to them why it doesn't work without me having
to spend the time refining it and vectorizing it.
Number one, the key, it gives off the wrong message.
We don't want to be perceiving to give people the keys to
something when we're trying to lock something safe.
So a keyhole would actually be more beneficial and more appropriate.
Point number two, the key would look way too vintage, and the
cybersecurity company cannot look vintage at all.
It's very difficult for me not to go to old school style of design.
It's something that I love, ominous designs, things that
show weird symbolisms, I'm a big fan of, and I always go
close to them and then sort of go into a modern route.
However, I did create these two icons that could be used.
They weren't balanced, but they were very unique as a logo design.
Now, another concept that I created was working out the
Fibonacci sequence and creating an F out of it.
Obviously, I started with these hexagon shapes, which would
have one, then two, and then three at the top.
I wanted to see if I could create these blocks into an F
to sort of illustrate the Fibonacci sequence.
But the problem again with that is that it wouldn't look very
futuristic, it wouldn't look very secure, it wouldn't work as a logo.
And also, because Fibonacci is a very visual thing for people,
it's not just like the actual practicality of it, of adding
one then one one, then two one one, stuff like that, because people don't
want to be reading that, and it's not instantly viable for
people to read that.
I wanted to get the actual spiral in there, the visual indicator.
So after those concepts, I moved on to the iPad.
I like to draw it in real paper most of the time until I need
to do more refining to my sketches.
I knew I was onto something with this idea, but I had to go
ahead and create some wacky spirals to try to make it look
like a thumbprint, at least, or even just an abstract
inclination of a thumbprint.
So instead of doing thumbprint inside a shield, I started
playing around with certain spirals, seeing how they were fit together.
And I found that the golden ratio spiral can actually fit
together and mix in and look pretty unique.
Created this sort of spiral pattern, which is kind of like
it's sort of nodding its head towards an abstract thumbprint.
So in essence, I'm trying to get cybersecurity in there and
a thumbprint made by the Fibonacci to marry them both
together a bit more appropriate.
So now that I've done some preliminary sketching and
everything else, it's time to bring it into Illustrator.
Now, Adobe Illustrator is a great program that I use all the time.
That's how we vectorize our logo designs.
But I must stress, I haven't spent as much time in
Illustrator as I have in sketching.
What you've seen in the sketching and the ideation
process has all been sped up.
But this part is obviously more interesting for you to watch.
So you're going to see more of it. In the Illustrator
I get the golden ratio in that, I create the spiral, golden circles.
Got a video all about that, link in the description.
And I go to work creating, trying to anyway create a
thumbprint in a shield type.
But it didn't really work because it was looking a bit too cartoonish.
I didn't like the balancing of it, and there was too much
details in the other spirals that I was seeing.
I'd have to create these sort of spirals outside of the main
Fibonacci spiral, which was not part of the Fibonacci sequence,
which kind of ruined it for me.
And I'm kind of pig headed with that.
And I wanted to keep the Fibonacci exactly all the way through.
That was until I created these two spirals.
I used one Fibonacci spiral.
I copied it, flipped it, and I put it together and it created
this really cohesive spiral, looked like an abyss, like one
of those illusions.
From there, I created a few more of them, cleaned up,
added a typeface underneath, which was more towards a vintage typeface.
And that is because I was thinking purely too much about
when Fibonacci Sequence was used.
Kind of like the Vinci and everyone else.
So I wanted to use a typeface, the link to be old.
Moving towards the end of the design process for the logo, I added
circle around the spirals to see what would happen.
And I really liked the look of it.
It kind of looked like a lollipop, like one of those old school lollipops.
I played around with it, but again, it looked more like a
hotel logo than a cybersecurity logo.
It didn't really work.
I added a triangle and I did weird things to the logo to see
what I could do to make it different.
But it didn't work as well as that
the typeface was like this sort of serif old school typeface.
Didn't really speak cybersecurity.
That was until I started putting the spiral into different shapes.
Now, I brought Jim over to have a look, see what I could do.
See his thoughts and opinions on him, and he said the same
things I was thinking, which was, it's not really
appropriate for cybersecurity.
You want a chunky font.
You want this shield type logo.
Although cliche, it worked.
So I started putting the spiral in, like, a triangle.
Then I went and did what I thought I wouldn't do, which is
create this sort of shield.
It's a square with a round bottom, and I put the logo
inside of it, and that's where it hit.
It actually worked.
Number one, it looked like a shield.
Number two, it looks like a thumbprint.
Number three, it's got the Fibonacci sequence in it.
And number four, it looks like a keyhole.
I hit the nail on the head there, and I was super happy with it.
So I went ahead and played around with some fonts, and
I started working on this to see what I could do, changing the colours.
From here, I had the logo that I was happy with.
I was happy of showing this.
It was different enough, and it ticked all my boxes.
It was unique.
It was scalable.
It was abstract enough, and it was recognizable as well.
And, of course, it fits the proportions of the golden ratio, too.
And the reason why I choose a logo like this and I tunnel
vision into one is because there's a time when you've
exhausted every other option and you're sort of narrowing
down a direction.
And when you get to a certain direction, you just know it's
the right way because you sort of canceled out all the other
places you could go.
From this point, it was time to start mocking things up.
I went to Envato Elements, and I brought in some mock ups to
see how it would look like in the real life.
It looked great on t shirts.
It looked great with cyber security holographic mock ups
that I found. I'm seeing if it would work as, like, marketing material, really.
But to really test out whether this logo works, I had to go to
Printful.com, who is sponsoring this video.
I wanted to see what this design will look like in the flesh.
Now, if you remember my last redesign, I redesigned this one,
which is called Drip fashion, and I bought a hat.
I bought t shirts.
Well, I've done the same for Fibonacci.
I bought different elements, different products that are
appropriate that you might see in either the shop or employees wearing.
Now, the great thing about Printful is I could order one
of these to see for myself. Instead of having to use
mock ups all the time.
I can take my own images of these, and they're very
inexpensive to actually get from Printful.
So, again, if you want to get your products seen, and you
want to get people buying your products without having to
spend loads of money on stocking up use Printful.
Honestly, it's amazing.
I'm never buying a hat.
I'm always doing my own hats now, from now on.
And there you guys have it.
That is how I redesigned the Fibonacci logo.
I don't know which you like.
If any of these concepts that I've shown you, you like.
Explain why.
If you don't like any of them, let me know.
The final logo isn't really the final one.
What I want to do is ask you guys which concept I should
have gone for.
You obviously know the one that I went for, the one that
I prefer, but it'd be interesting to hear your comments.
Now, if you do have any questions, number one,
make sure to subscribe.
And two, comment them down below, and I'll do my best to
answer every single one.
I do look at them, but I just can't answer every single question.
But there you guys have it.
Thanks for watching, and I'll see you in the next one.
See you soon.
Goodbye.