The initial brief from Cogsmith was to create a logo, perhaps to include a cog motif, that communicated the aesthetic of “steam punk”, restoration, industrial and hand crafted.
Looking at serif fonts we explored a typographic logo, making use of the letters shapes and a stand out colour. Greys and oranges were suggested. The client discussed their love of the shape of the letter g, and we thought we’d take a risk and emphasise a letter not at the beginning of the word.
The following ideas were from early drafts.
Stage 2
As the design process progressed, so did the company themselves and – as seen in the presentations above – the style influences drifted from steam punk typewriter fonts into mid-century modern.
Eventually the client came back and asked for the brief to be changed as they themselves had rethought their products. The new brief was that they wanted to be known as craftsmen. The emphasis was not on the style or era of their products, but that they were artisan makers and restorers of furniture.
The joy in working with this client in particular, was that they had such a strong sense of design and so the dialogue was exciting, heated and creative. We were struggling to find just right shade of orange, until we had a call from the client, excited that they had found it at last. With a sample we established the hex code and there it was, the decision was made.
The following is the the result and the final logo.
