Creating the logo “ACUBE”

Thu, 28 Feb 2019 13:49:14 +0200

ACUBE — organizer of progressive ballet productions, among them:

a successful 2016 tour: Complexions — a leading troupe from the USA, with performances for David Bowie’s music, Metallica;
2017 tour: Radio and Juliet — Edward Clug’s production for the music of the cult Radiohead;
The Great Gatsby Ballet — the first and only ballet project that was created in Ukraine and has a success abroad. Created by Alexander and Alexei Polevymi together with Konstantin Meladze, Denis Matvienko and Dwight Rhoden.

ACUBE builds big plans for 2018–2019. It’s time to combine all achievements under a single brand.

The mission is to popularize modern choreography and ballet, to show, as far as it can be spectacular and cool.

In the first letter, references and comments it became clear that the logo should be geometric, progressive and modern. The strictness and style with its roots could go to Germany — the favorite country of one of the organizers.

One of the first reflections came to my mind about the base of the cube that is square. Which font would fit most of all, based on a square, and it pretend to be Germany? That’s right, it’s Fracture or Gothic Inscriptions.

Love appeared to the Gothic font from the day The Great Fruit logo was created, on which I worked with the first sketches and later stylized by Wild is.

Then came a little research. I turned to the books of Gordon and David Harris.

Some disappointment followed after. It became clear that of all the known outlines of the letter “A”, which interests us, the most incomprehensible belongs to the Textura:

And Bastard:

Fragments from David Harris “The Art of Calligraphy”

“A” is just unaccustomed & is not clear to read. What was the most interesting thing to notice is that “A” in the Texture is read as two digits – 2 and 1. And “B” is read as 2 and 3:

In correspondence with the organizers, it became clear that the logo may look like “A3”. It remains to understand how to prevent the occurrence of discrepancies: the number “3” as the right element of the symbol will give the letter “B”.

We tried to make sketches with a lot of different options.

There is an idea to move the number “3” to the left, to make it one of the legs “A”:

I select a sketch and begin to refine the elements on the screen:

I began to associate drawing with dance. Where the three on the left is the female element. Square – cube, combines the composition with the male element on the right:

The first time I get in touch with Lesia, she was very worried about the project. We consulted about that something in the logo is not enough. Something inside does not meet the standards. We started to refine. Changed the right cut of the letter. For the first time, we began to think of a “cube” as a regular hexagon. Subsequently, this will form the basis of the whole concept.

The first version of the logo came out and we made a presentation to the organizers.

We got the comments:

In this case, the logo in its integral form does not reflect our vision.
Separate element cube — a very good solution and should be left.
Male and female element — quite good.
Reference and Germany — there was a view of hi-tech, minimalism. Maybe you should give up all bindings to countries.
Gothic in this case is associated with the Middle Ages and looks cool, but again, I repeat, it does not reflect our internal state, which is a direct display of our company.

We started again. We took as a basis the already obtained cube with a raised lid. We throw out the cover, on both sides we started to make a font matrix. The new idea is to make a geometric inscription ACUBE and fasten to it the main element of the previous version of the logo.

We verify the kerning. In this case, fits a steady, equal rhythm. The cube is visually highlighted from the inscription, although it has the same distances in the gaps.

At the same time, the thought appears to make a corporate pattern. We worked on different options. One looked satisfactory.

Show and discuss. All good. The organizers want to get rid of the standard type of logos (sign + inscription) and work on colors. Looking bright and acid for posters.

Now the reverse operation: we throw out the main element — the cube to which we arrived at the beginning. In essence, each letter of the logo is two sides of the same cube. Therefore, we try to close the logo composition on the right. This will make it symmetrical. And we try different proportions of the inner space of letters and their widths.

Symmetry can be seen on the bottom right in the sketches. Now drawing looks more confident and mobile.

Making a loose kerning. Just a little, barely noticeable — and that changes everything.

After some time of attempts and failures, we come to a variant that pleases the eye.

Done!

The logo is proposed to be used in the related color palette of existing brands.

“CGN” & “the NotS” books design & production

Mon, 25 Feb 2019 15:27:25 +0200

the Great Fruit, posts tagged: Add † Word

Creating the logo “ACUBE”

“CGN” & “the NotS” books design & production