Development

Initial Designs

These are my initial designs for the sugar skull element of my logo. I took inspiration for these from my mood boards and experimented on paper with different shapes of skull and different decorations. From these I found I preferred the ripple edged eye, smooth chin, split nose and a black gum outline around the teeth because I think these looked most effective and typical of a Mexican sugar skull.

Next I did some experiments with different materials:

Paint-
I made a watercolour effect for the background of the skull using watercolour paints and mixing them together on the paper. I like the effect of this but I'm not sure if it goes very well with the Mexico city theme because the colours of that are bright and bold and these turned out very pastel and subtle.

Next I used a dabbing motion with the paint brush to fill in the face. This turned out a lot bolder than the first one but I think it would be too much under the outlines of the sugar skulls features and would drown them out.

This is actually the template I used when making the pictures but I ended up liking the way it looked with the bold outline and pastel inner part. I also like the messy faded blue paint around the eyes and I could try scanning something similar in and using it behind the sugar skull on a clothing item e.g. tshirt.

I used a paper template and painted around the outline and then filled in eyes with dabs of blue and pink. I like the effect of the outline but I think the eyes are a bit much and would take over the whole picture so elements I could develop further from this picture is having the faded water colour style outline around the sugar skull.

I used the template to make a blue outline and filled in the eyes with blue paint. I dont really like the look of the neat line and block colour eyes so doing this helped me to see that if I want to use a painted outline under my sugar skull it needs to have a messier and thicker outline like the picture above.

Ink-
I used black ink and a fine paintbrush to make the outline of a sugar skull design. Although I think it turned out well I think if I wanted to use it for my designs maybe for the logo or a tshirt it would need refining because the edges are quite smudged and messy and from my research I found that mexican sugar skull art is generally digitally made with clean edges so it would have to be a variant design maybe just for clothing if I used it.

Charcol-

I used a stick of charcol to draw this sugar skull and I think it turned out ok because I still managed to get in all the detail but I think if I wanted a hand drawn sugar skull the ink would be the best option because I got the lines neater and the charcol smudged very easily so would neat a lot of touching up on the computer.

Ink and Paint-

For this sugar skull I did the same design as above in black ink and then I used paints to fill in the rest of the design doing an gradient effect for the main face. I like the effect of the gradient because it means I can get a bright colour in to the design without it taking over the whole design as the overall effect is a lot softer and I think the details work coloured in because Mexican sugar skulls are traditionally either black and white or coloured in with many colours. I dont think this would work on my logo because it is too much colour and detail for when the logo is small but I could make something similar for a clothing design and it might work well on its own on a tshirt.




 Logo Development

These are my initial designs for the development of the written part of my logo. I tried doing a simplified version of the decorative swirly fonts that I found on my typography mood board and I think these are simple enough to be placed with the sugar skull picture but decorative enough to be used on their own and still give off a mexican vibe so I will consider doing something similar for my final logo.

Next I made an outline of this logo so that I could take it on to the computer and see how it would look when made and filled in on illustrator and this helped me decide whether it work as part of my final logo and if it still worked as well on screen.

I cut out the outlines of letters, stuck them on card and then used black ink and dabbed it on using a paintbrush to create this distressed outline around the letters before peeling them off to leave the shape behind. I really like the look of this and although I don't think it would work as my final logo because its too bold to be used along side a sugar skull shape I could use it as a variant to be used on clothing e.t.c.



Development on computer

I then photographed the black ink logo and put it into the computer and used illustrator to neaten it up. I dont think I will develop this any further on the computer because the edges of the paint didnt clean up very well and it would need a lot of refining before it would be ready to use. I might consider scanning it in to get a higher quality image at a later time because it could still be used on a clothing item because I still think the outline of ink is bold and effective because it really makes the logo stand out and is very eye catching.

Next I made a mexican inspired logo that was my own version of some typography I found on one of my mood boards. I think this captures the theme well because it gives off a mexican vibe and is although the lines are decorative the strokes are very think so it keeps it simple enough to be placed with a sugar skull. This also causes a problem with having it as my main logo though because when made smaller it would not be that legible and would not stand out very much so I may have to keep this as a variant just for clothing e.t.c.

Next I made another sans serif font but this time a lot bolder. I was inspired by the tones of gray I had seen used in lots of sugar skull art so I decided to create a font using only layered shades of gray. I think this font is bold and would stand out but I think this time the stroke may be a bit too think along side the sugar skull and the whole thing could look too chunky, plus it would be hard to read when made to a smaller size.

For this font I used negative space by filling the lines of text with a pattern. I like how this turned out because it is legible and has a very mexican vibe to it because of the mexican prints I used for the fill but I think it would be too decorative and over complicated when placed along with the sugar skull image so I dont think I could use it on my main logo but there is a possibility it could be a variant.

I also scanned in my black ink sugar skill drawing and live traced it on illustrator. I managed to neaten and refine the edges but Im not happy with the actual design of the sugar skull because I think it is too long and the detail still needs to simplified and it needs to be refined further to have a more professional look to it.

I also tried the sugar skull in white on a black background and the same with the font and placed them next to each other to see how they worked together. I think the font works better in white on black because it makes it stand out more and there is more of a contrast in the colours but I think the skull was better with a black outline and this is because the thicker strokes give the white a lot more contrast with the black and this is too much and hurts your eyes.

I tried incorporating the pattern logo with the sugar skull logo by using the skull as the 'A'. I dont think it works that well because the patterned type is already very decorative so the skull is not standing out against it and gets lost.

I wasnt happy with the sugar skull I had drawn in ink so I made one on illustrator instead and simplified the face, details and head shape. I think this skull works a lot better because it looks neater and more refined and more professional and because it is simpler it will now work as part of the logo.

Next I tried putting this sugar skull with some of the logos I had already made. Again I think the patterned logo is too decorative to be used a long with even the simplified sugar skull and I think if I am doing the sugar skull in gray and white then the text should be black so that it blends in better with the logo and they look part of each other. The first logo works slightly better but is still too much to be used with the skull.

Next I tried adding in the skull with the mexican font and I found I really liked the look of it replacing the 'A' because the strokes are similar widths so they blend well together but it doesnt overpower the font and isnt overpowered by the font so although I dont think this would work my main logo I will consider using it as a variant.

Because all of my decorative fonts were clashing with the sugar skull and they were too much when used together I decided to use a much simpler pre made font instead. I ended up really liking the middle logo because I think the font and skull compliment each other but the font still manages to stand out slightly against the skull because I made the stroke slightly thicker. I think this would work really well as my main logo as it would work well smaller for stationary and buisness cards and also bigger for clothing designs.

Next I made a variant logo by using the same font as above to write 'sugar skull mexico city' inside the eyes. This wouldnt work that well on smaller designs because the writing wouldnt be legible but I think it could work really well blown up on a clothing design because its a way of doing an image based logo with the name still incorporated but not the main focus.

I also made a coloured version using two of the colours from my colour mood board. I chose blue and pink because they contrast well and in my research I found that contrasting colours are often used in mexican graphic images and also in the colours of mexico city in the festivals e.t.c. I could use this as a variant of my logo because I think it could work on its own on a clothing item to add some colour to the brand.


Final Logo and 3 Variants

This is my final design for the logo and the three variants. Overall I am happy with how these turned out because I think the main logo would work well big and small and the font is simple enough to be used with the sugar skull which is what I wanted to achieve. I also think the variants work quite well because they could be used for a variety of different purposes with one that is very type based and two image based.