Designing a Logo

While waiting for a train the other day, I looked up at some of the advertisements lining the walls of the station.  Most of the ads tempted you to some diversion or other – a play, a ride in the London Eye, or a museum exhibit.  The stations between Oxford and London had quite a few museum events touted in posters on the walls and it got me thinking about the importance of branding and graphic design.  Images and their arrangement on posters, web, and publications are an essential element to encouraging the public to come through a museum’s doors.

Our blog is only a few weeks old, and our object list for the exhibit still nascent, but we thought it was important to have graphics associated with our theme.  Hiring a graphic designer was not an option, as our little venture is cash poor.  That being said, it is also resource rich.  We not only have the incredible staff at the museum supporting us, but a network of friends and family to draw upon.  In this vein, our illustrator, Alexis Frederick-Frost, is donating his time to help our project.

TracesMorris

The banner at the top of the home page is one of the two options he gave us after receiving the incredibly vague directions: “We need something that says ‘traces’.”  The alternative is pictured above.  We did not choose it only because we thought the Morse code reference may be lost to most people.

I thought I would also include a picture of his notebook, where he brainstormed ideas.

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And one of the more whimsical versions of the logo which was later done up in photoshop in Velvet Underground/Andy Warhol style…

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TracesVelvet

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