Business Opportunities Weblog Network Logo Design January 17th, 2007 by Mike
In late 2006, Dane Carlson of the Business Opportunities Weblog Network contracted me
to design an identity for his weblog network.
The Business Opportunities Weblog Network (BOWN) is described as a “moderated list of legitimate business opportunities for entrepreneurs”, which features lists of business ideas, and tips.
Dane has been blogging since 2001, and wanted a new corporate identity that was fresh and clean, to help realign his blog.
So, Dane and I started through our normal process of getting information from goals, the business, his color and style likes and dislikes, and other useful information to help me develop good design ideas.
Dane liked the general idea of a lightbulb, so I included this idea, along with several other ideas, to make sure we explored all options.
Challenges
While “Business Opportunities Weblog Network” was descriptive, it’s a really long name to deal with when creating a logo design. It would be challenging to be find a way to list the full name and not let the words dominate the identity.
Another challenge, related to the long name, was keeping the identity simple and easily recognizable. How do you show a business network in a single symbol?
Sketches
Once Dane’s information was read and digested, I brought out the sketchbook and pencil to get ideas on paper. In 2 rounds of sketches I produced several interesting ideas, incorporating the lightbulb and other ideas for representations of a network. Here are a few selected sketches:
1. This idea featured “Business Opportunities” larger, and a briefcase fashioned from triangular shapes, woth “Weblog Network” tucked under the larger type.
2. On this concept, I’ve replaced the briefcase symbol with an interconnected triangular grid symbol, to emphasize the network nature of the name.
3. Here I’m indicating a stylized lightbulb to the left, Business with most emphasis and “Opportunities” and “Weblog Network” descending in size and importance.
4. The winning idea shows a lightbulb within a circular symbol on the left, and an alternate dark version on the right. The idea was to show the lightbulb as a node on a network, incorporating both a bulb and network in the logo.
Black & White Art
Once the winning concept of a lightbulb on a network, inside of a circle containing the type was selected, I moved to produce the black and white version of the logo for Dane. The black and white phase went pretty quickly, and we both liked how the concept translated from sketch into black and white art. The next challenge was color.Color Art
In the color phase, I wanted to show Dane some color varieties, but didn’t want to do too many at one time, so I selected 3 color themes with both flat and gradated options, and presented them:
Our eyes were pretty immediately drawn to blue, orange and green. I also liked the blue/green option, though the orange center circle of the first idea (B&C) really seemed to convey a warmth to balance the cool crispness of the green and blue.
After a little deliberation, Dane chose the blue/orange/green option as the winner.
Conclusion
Just last week, Dane completed his redesign of the Business Opportunities Weblog Network weblog, and used the new logo design to shape his redesign. I really like how the colors feel warm, yet crisp and clean, and after not seeing the logo between delivery and appearance, I’m very pleased with how it turned out.
My thanks go to Dane Carlson for choosing to work with me and MakaluMedia on his new identity. We both had a great time collaborating and I think we came up with a fun, attractive logo design.
January 21st, 2007 at 7:16 am
Another great piece of work. I really like these blog posts where you show the process of working with a client.
One thing I’ve always wondered. How long does it typically take you to come up with those initial sketches?
January 22nd, 2007 at 9:03 pm
Thanks for the kind words, Michael!
Timing for Initial sketches are hard to pin down — sometimes they come quickly and other times they take some work and possibly several revisions. It really depends on the challenge itself. However, sketching is always a critical part of the process, since nailing down the idea is so important to a good identity.