Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge Association
AnnaliseVanessa | Wed, 09/23/2015 - 23:12
Brief from client
Visual Identity logo for and to promote Festival of the Cranes held by Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge Association.
Logo must be eye eye-catching and legible. Logo must have a Crane theme with at least one Sandhill and/ or Whooping Crane. Must look good in color and in black and white.
3 Comments
With three different fonts, this many words, and the variation of the first letter different in each word of the second line the text is just really overwhelming me. At a small scale I couldn't recognize that this was a crane's head, which is odd since it's so large. Also if it is in black and white, as the client wants the option, how do you handle the red head and black eye? Will the eye just be a white cut-out? In my opinion just having the eye be a cut out might work better than what you have here. The black gets lost in the red. Not enough contrast. Overall I don't think this is really that eye-catching. Maybe expressing a crane in a more unique or even abstract way would be better. Something with some swooping movement to express the flight of the bird would catch my eye and get me excited about this event. Right now it's very stagnant and it looks kind of old to me. I know you have to illustrate a specific kind of bird, but maybe look at some of these for inspiration:
https://www.google.com/search?q=abstract+bird+logos&biw=1679&bih=889&sou...
I agree 100% with Katelin. This is way too complicated and confusing. The font work is a mess.
The crane head symbol isn't working, for the same reasons Katelin pointed out. Moreover, I think is more recognizable by its general stature than by just its head.
The main word here is SIMPLIFY. Drastically. Stick to only two fonts top. That really compliment each other. Sketch a few hundreds ideas on paper first. Get inspired (Pinterest is a must)
Good luck.
I agree with all the above statements. This is cluttered, cramped, and hard to read. Reduce the number of fonts to two that compliment each other, give them room to breath. Mind your blacks, you're using at least two different shades of black (not including the greys in the subcopy). My guess is that you're mixing CMYK and RGB palettes.
And I hate to be the Clip Art Cop, but I strongly suspect that you didn't draw the bird. It's too well done, compared to the poor typography skills on display. Someone who can draw vector art that well doesn't make these kinds of typographical mistakes. Something doesn't add up.
I've seen some of your other logos, I know you can do better than this. Try harder, work on it, and I'm sure you'll land on something good.