Sudz Logo | calliesvp

Sudz Logo Design

Shown on the left is my very first logo design for the business. I used my own photograph as the background and I used a circle shape as a base for my logo. I decided to use a circle base for my logo as it looks professional and fits the uses of my business. My business mainly sells bath bombs, mini bath bombs and smelly's that are nearly all circle based products. Therefore, having a circle based logo only fits the uses of the company. For the outer rim of the circle base, I used the colour picker tool to pick a darker pink colour that is in the photo so that it matches. For the text, I used the same colour as the circle outline as the outline of the text and I picked a lighter colour from the image as the base of font. This makes the logo colour co-ordinated and simple.

Experimentation Process

To create my first logo design, I used the program Illustrator. I started off with a basic shape such as a circle, I opened up an image I took of one of the mini chill pill bath bombs, I dragged it on top of the circle and pressed the button shown below that the arrow is pointing to. This allowed me to fill the circle with the image of my choice. I then made a little border with the colour picker to so that the border colour is one of the dark colours in the image so the colour will go well, and then I added a text layer. I changed the font and the size of the image, I used the colour picker tool to select one of the brightest colours in the image I am using as my background and this is the text colour. I then selected the colour of the border and set this as the border of the text.

I experimented with this logo design a lot because I wanted it to reflect the business. I wanted it to look professional and simple while also being able to reflect the business. The circle reflects the bath bombs that we sell.

I experimented with multiple different fonts, styles, background images, borders, text sizes and positions. As there is an endless amount of different ways and options to create the logo you want. I do not think that this logo is the final logo for the business because it does not look as professional as I hoped it would but, it is a start to creating the final logo.

What have I learnt from making this logo?

I have learnt more about the program Illustrator, I have learnt how I want to portray the business by how I want the logo too look and I have learnt more about matching the colours with the image so it looks colour co-ordinated rather than the colours not looking good together.

The logo is relevant to my business because it is what customers recognise us by. It is the first sighting of the business name and hen they see the logo, they will instantly recognise it as our business. It makes the business look far more professional by having a logo for the customers to remember meaning the customers will put their trust into us as a business selling these products.

What was successful?

I believe the whole outcome of the logo was successful, you are easily able to see the business name, you can identify what the business is and where the name came from by the bath bomb and bubbles in the image as well as the circle logo base. The logo does its job and its initial intentions for the business therefore, I believe it is an overall success.

What was not so successful?

I don't particularly like the logo although it does its job, because I don't think it looks very professional, I don't think its too creative or unique and it just looks like a beginner really has made it. I will not be using the logo for the social media sites or website just yet because I am not happy with it but in time, I will be creating many more logos and designs until I am happy with it. The reason for not doing more logo designs within my project, is that it takes too much time when I have other social media sites to maintain. Hopefully far in the future, we can hire a designer to create a professional official logo for our business instead.

How could I improve the logo in the future?

I could improve the logo in the future by spending a lot more time and effort on it. Because I have to create a website, create an Instagram page, create business cards, a Facebook page, research and do boot fair stalls in a small timeframe, it is very hard to get things looking exactly how I want them with limited time. If I was doing this for a company in the industry, I would be given a lot more time to do this volume of work for their business to get it setup. However, because this is my project, I only have limited time meaning I will try my best to get the logo and elements looking as good as they can but it will be hard with such limited time to do it.

What feedback did I receive from my tutors and peers?

Instead of creating a questionnaire, I printed my logo off in big to fill up a A3 sheet of paper. I printed off one in big on an A3 sheet of paper and another one off a medium and small size on a A4 sized sheet of paper. This allowed my peers to view the logo in different sizes. I did this because if we was a fully-functioning business in the industry, we would need our logo on posters, on the website, on our social media, on our clothing, on our business cards, on walls and on window stickers or on the side of vans and cars. Meaning the logo would be viewed both big and small to catch the attention of our audience. Once I printed these off on multiple sheets of paper, I handed it all out to the class to gain their feedback on the logo sitting right in front of them.

No one was really fond of the logo because they said it does not look too professional but they said it does the job.

The results of my feedback given from my logo, is shown below:

When I had asked my peers whether or not they found my logo professional, most of them honestly answered no. 29% of them said yes because the circe bas fits the nature of the business but, 79% said no because they do not think the image looks professional with the logo, they think bold or pastel solid colours would look better if done creatively and in proportion. I also agree with these statements.

When I had asked what the audience would do differently if they had the chance, most of them said to not use an image, just bold colours. They said having either bold or pastel colours that are colour co-ordinated well would look so much better rather than an image which looks less creative.

When I had asked, do you think this logo is successful, 25 people out of the 30, replied with no because it looks like it has been created very quickly, with little to no effort being made as it is easy to upload an image and set it as the background of the circle.

Lastly, I asked the 30 people what the strengths are of the logo so that I know what was good about it for when I do my next edits in the future, and the most common answer was a circle base. My peers had said that, that element was the most professional looking part of the logo and it fits well with the bath bomb business, it only makes sense.

I also gained feedback by the graphics design tutor in the Maidstone campus. He said it is a very good start seeing as you have been self taught to use the program and you have a good outcome. It could have been better by not using an image and coming up with a strong concept idea rather than using a circle as the shape base. You could create your own base to show more uniqueness and creativity.

To conclude, I believe that gaining peer feedback from my logo, was really useful as I was able to gain positive and negative feedback that is helping me go a long way with the development of my project. I am able to see the strengths and weaknesses of my logo for when I will practice and do another edit.

My primary research has helped my understanding of my strengths being the concept and circle base of my logo and the weakness being the image background. When it comes to doing another edit in the future, I will definitely take on board the primary research feedback I have collecting and I will try to make the logo look more unique to my business with an image.

I am currently working on my second logo edit right now but it will not be done by the project deadline so I am not using it for my project, I am just doing it to help build my business. The logo edit I am currently working on now, is shown below but there is yet a long way to go with it.

6The idea of this edit I am currently doing, is to have my own base and no image. The black outline is not part of logo, it is just to get my base. I want the little coloured circles to form a bigger circle on their own, the thick black outline will be deleted once all of the little circles have formed a larger circle. I may add outlines and connect them with the little circles then add the title or something but I am not sure yet, there is a lot of experimentation that needs to be done still.

Here are to business card designs I made. The top one was the first design which I didn't like as the writing was too small to read, and the one below was my best design. I have been printing these off 8 on a page on photo paper card, and using them on the boot fair stalls.