Hello Everyone!
For this week’s assignment, I worked in Adobe Illustrator to create the final logo for Sound + Color, which focuses on a behind-the-scenes look at live entertainment. I will cover my initial draft process, feedback, and revisions.
My first challenge with this assignment was how to convey both live sound and lighting in a static vector logo. I am a fan of minimalism, but I didn’t feel like it would apply well here. I wanted something punchy and sharp; a logo that could be bright and flashy like a loud rock show without being gaudy. I spent several days mulling over many design concepts, thinking about the scalability of the logo for future projects. I worked through different layouts, deciding three things:
1. I wanted the logo to be round.
2. I wanted to incorporate elements of an audio graphic equalizer (EQ), and….
3. I wanted to include a spectrum of light to represent stage lighting.
Once I knew what direction I wanted to go in, I needed to locate tutorials and examples that could help me forge the design that started to form in my mind. However, you might be wondering how I came to those design decisions in the first place. My initial thoughts about having a round logo related to possibly making a logo in the shape of a vinyl record. Ultimately, I scrapped that idea because it didn’t incorporate the lighting aspects very well. I instead went with a round shape that simulated a stage light, emitting white light that splits into a prism. That prism element doubles as the sound element, as it is in the shape a rounded audio graphic EQ. The text on the logo represents the “old school vinyl” look I initially wanted to go in, and also functions as a “gobo” on the white “light.”
For reference to those unfamiliar, a gobo is a stencil-like wheel apparatus inside moving lights. If you’ve ever seen a cool pattern being emitted from the stage lighting during a show, you are watching a gobo in action.
Back to tutorials and examples! After scouring YouTube over a couple days, I was fortunate to find a video that covered a very similar design to what I had in mind. There was one catch though…. the video wasn’t in English! Luckily, I was still able to follow it well, and it gave me plenty of information to make the circular graphic EQ that I was thinking of. I’ll include a link to the video at the bottom of the post.
For the technical side of my design process, I started with one line with rounded corners, and duplicated it into several lines. I then erased sections to simulate EQ sound waves, doubled the section, erased more lines for pattern variance, and saved my selection as a pattern brush. After that, I drew a circle and applied the EQ pattern brush to create the radial EQ design on the outside of the logo. From there, I decided to apply a pastel spectrum of light, then I duplicated that section to apply a Gaussian blur and blending modes. This enabled a slight glowing effect to the radial EQ and helped simulate the glow of stage lighting, as if the prism was emanating straight from the white circle “light” portion.
I received two main pieces of feedback after I posted my initial draft:
1. There were sections of the radial graphic EQ that were overlapping each other, and….
2. The pastel lettering was a bit difficult to read.
In the revisions stage, I adjusted the EQ pattern brush so that the radial lines would be truly equidistant to each other. This adjustment fixed the sections that were touching in the initial draft, but I had to create a new radial EQ for the logo. Moreover, I had to re-do the glowing effects after the brush adjustment, this time amplifying the glow compared to the previous draft. After viewing the new radial EQ, I decided to make it slightly brighter than the previous pastel EQ. I then added a thin stroke to the radial EQ to add depth and visual interest.
From there, the outside of the logo was complete, but the inner sections were still unfinished. This time, I changed the font color to a darker blue to make it more readable in response to the feedback I received. I then added the blue circles on top of the white circle background to tie together the EQ graphic. For the text, I decided to arc both sections to mimic the arc of the circle as a throwback to retro vinyl records and the aforementioned gobos. Lastly, I added a prism stroke to the text, tying it back into the shining spectrum in the radial EQ, and exported the logo to the PNG file format so that I could maintain background transparency.
Overall, I am very happy with how the logo turned out!
Reference link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVPgn5gcEjU
Amy Mirai Dillon 