Laura was a fantastic client to work with. Direct and decisive whilst remaining positive and interested in the outcome. The brief was a good one too. I know Laura's work well, and so leapt at the chance to give her work an overarching brand.
The ideas started from Laura's visual reference of the customised motorcycle brand Deus Ex Machina, who's stylised visual language represents the kind of imagery and scenery that Farrall's work takes in - notably motorcycles and the people that give their live to them. From the outset, the brief was to imply all of this without bringing in literal visuals of bikes and motor racing. The specific time frame is around the 1930's a period wherein the bike brand Rudge was at its' most prolific. Rudge is the brand of bike that Laura's family have collected ever since.
The logo marks went through more iterations than I've ever proposed before, ranging from the extremely minimal and clean to swooshed typography and even some dabblings with abstract bike parts. The end result sits more toward the clean and crisp end of the spectrum, yet the type chosen undoubtedly implies the eras mentioned above. There's a softness to the edges of Ostrich (the typeface) that hits the nail on the head for Laura's brand. Not forgetting Laura's actual practice - photography - I started messing around with bringing shadow into the logo, having shifted the type onto a jaunty angle and suddenly these 'shadows' became more evocative of speed and racing lines.
Taking into account the usage of logos these days, I planned both a full name logo and an initial logo which would serve for social media and the like. This was a success. The full logo has an authority about it which would eventually end up on the business cards whilst the smaller iterations are fun and work in their context online + in smaller print spaces.
Laura had mentioned at the briefing that she wanted a physical pack of some sort to give to interested clients. I agreed that this represented the analogue and darkroom nature of the work. We chose 5 varied pieces from her portfolio and sent these off for print as postcards. Alongside a simple business card in black and white, the pack started to take place. Adding my own handcrafted edge, I decided to screenprint the logo in a mustard colour onto cello bags whcih would then hold the postcards and business cards. I felt the bag lacked a little story as it was so we came up with the short and succinct 'Then, Now' to quickly sum up Laura's work.
I'm very pleased with the outcome of this project. I feel like it was a brand project from the heart and done right. I explored numerous iterations of the brand, soaked in research from across motorsport and clothing brand from the 30's and produced a lovely piece of printed promotional material alongside an evocative logo mark.
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