Earlier this year I was contacted by Alison at The Proof Fairy to work on a new identity design for her business.
The Proof Fairy provide several services from blogging and writing, through to editing and a very handy ‘Pay As You Go Proofreading Service’ .
They have a great reputation and come highly recommended with many happy customers. Should you need any proof reading, writing or editing be sure to get in touch with them.
When contacted by Alison we had a chat through what she had in mind, what the company offered and I also provided a Logo Questionnaire.
I use the questionnaire before I start an new logo design project as it helps me to find out more about the business, who it’s audience is, how it markets and positions itself and generally how it ticks.
Amongst the 4 initial concepts Alison wanted the idea of a character explored, that could possibly be based on herself.
Other than that it was an open brief and Alison was happy for me to put forward fresh concepts
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Initial Logo Design Concept No: 1
This concept focused on the idea of Alison as character, working her magic on some words, hence the company strap line ‘Working magic with your words’.
I created an illustrated, tongue in cheek ‘wee me’ version of Alison that had the possibility of being used on future marketing material in various different ways.
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Initial Logo Design Concept No: 2
This concept looked at the idea of the pen becoming a wand which also ties in with the company strap-line ‘Working magic with your words’.
Stars and an illustrated pen were used to form a ‘P’ but at the same time suggesting movement and magic.
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Initial Logo Design Concept No: 3
For this concept I chose to focus on the word ‘fairy’ within the company name, giving it wings it would become an icon or graphic device that could be used across other media either standalone or within the logo design.
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Initial Logo Design Concept No: 4
This concept looked at the combined idea of wings and a pair of glasses to form a light hearted and memorable graphic that could both suggest proof reading and play on the fairy element of the company name.
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Initial Logo Design Development No: 1
After much debate including Alison holding an opinion poll on both 4Networking online forum and her own blog it was decided that concept 2 was the strongest. There were positive comments ranging from “maintains a very professional image, but with sparkle – love it!”, to “it illustrates your business more clearly and is not ambiguous” so this option was developed.
First of all I looked at how to simplify the graphic as much as possible without losing the flow of the stars and the general idea of movement.
Below I show a number of stages where stars were removed and repositioned/rearranged until we arrived at a much simpler refined version.
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Initial Logo Design Development No: 2
At the initial concepts stage it was suggested that we look at a slightly different layout combining the stars within the ‘P’ into the ‘o’ of Proof Fairy.
This was explored but decided that it over complicated the design and distracted form the initial idea.
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Initial Logo Design Development No: 3
We then looked at the two chosen colours and selected brighter versions that worked better together and could also stand alone when being used in marketing material.
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Initial Logo Design Development No: 4
Also explored a range of layouts, positioning the graphic differently against the typography and looking at different balances of type and graphic.
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Initial Logo Design Development No: 5
Two layouts were settled on and refined until number 1 below was chosen as the more preferred and balanced identity.
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Initial Logo Design Development No: 6
We also looked at different typeface suitability for the strap line ‘Working magic with your words’.
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Final identity design for The Proof Fairy
Client testimonial:
“Gareth is fab! He has just done me a brand new logo.
The process was fascinating – he produced 4, one which seemed perfect.
He was happy for me to take the designs to the public vote – which changed everything – and then reworked the new logo till it was perfect.
I’d recommend Gareth to anyone!”
