OUGD503 - Studio Brief 1: Competition Brief 7: By The Bean

By The Bean - 9.2.14
This was another coffee shop branding that I found. As I enjoyed doing the previous one 'Glacier Coffee Roasters', I thought this would be a good one to do.

Unlike the previous one I did, this one is primarily text based, which definitely plays to myself. While they've said who they are and what colours they want, they've not really said so much into the aesthetic design that they're looking for. This is a bit of a challenge because I could design something which is completely opposite for what they're going for. Even though is is an issue I decided to continue with it anyway.
The client has specified that they'd prefer a flat design, so I have decided to keep it to a dark brown and white only. I also decided on using a coffee bean or cup as a small image element, but I only wanted to use it as a small detail and nothing too overpowering.
With all of this in mind I drew out a few initial ideas.

From here I took a few of the more promising designs and created them on illustrator.

At this point I am quite happy with the way these designs are going, and have decided that I will be going with the idea of a coffee coaster (the bottom three).

I then developed this idea, deciding that I liked the one on the right the most because of the dotted line on the inner circle.

The design is very simple, and not entirely memorable so I wanted to find a typeface which really made the logo stand out. I have also decided that I will make the shape a circle instead of having the pointy edges. I think this will make it much more contemporary and a better design.

Putting these elements together I created this logo.

I think the typeface is quite individual and definitely memorable because its not a standard one that's seen a lot. Overall I am quite pleased with the way it has turned out. It took a few attempts to get the layout right in in the placement of the coffee bean and if the lines around the text were necessary, but I have definitely created something which I think is quite striking.
For entering a submission, I added a design of the logo on a t-shirt because this was one of the things they suggested they wanted to put the logo onto.

Submission entered:

The day after I submitted it, the contest holder eliminated my design on the basis that my design was too 'modern/edgy' for them.

While it's disappointing that the design was eliminated, it doesn't surprise me that much because they haven't specified what kind of style they want at all. In terms of feedback to other designers, they're not really telling us what they want, just that what we've done isn't what they're looking for. So this makes it quite hard to redesign to what they want so I have decided to just leave it at this point because I don't want to waste more time on it.