On my designs so far both of the elements of typography and bold graphics have been separated and I haven’t entirely conjoined them to see how the logo could work altogether. Therefore, this post is exploring the different compositions that I have created with typography which I feel creates a nice juxtaposition to the graphic and is suitable for the identity of the brand.
As a starting point with this type face I arranged the words underneath the graphic and naturally stacked them on top of each other. I made all of the words line up, equally making them the same size so that the logo looks uniform and follows the overall aesthetic of the rest of the design. This is okay, but to me it seems like the two elements are divided and not working in harmony. However, I do think that this serif typography is suitable for this design as it reminds me of a tattoo identity, along with it juxtaposing against the curvature of the graphic and the harsh lines of the type. In order for this logo to work I know that both elements must work together more successfully.
To slightly alter this further I began to add more of a colour palette onto the typography to see if this would merge the two elements together more seamlessly. I continued the monochrome colour scheme throughout this with a combination of greys, which also feature in the octopus graphic. This works slightly better, though I still feel it isn’t working. Thus, I have continued to develop the composition in order to find the best possible one.
This led me onto lining all of the words up like a normal sentence. When I did this is was extremely hard to reach each individual word separately and it got confusing- therefore, it wasn’t working. So, I looked back at some of my previous ideas and saw the ship wheel that I had created for a different idea. This graphic motif allowed me to divide up the words to make them readable, and therefore making it more recognisable and eye-catching. Because of the uneven word numbers (4 in High, 4 in Seas, and 3 in Ink) it made the divide harder to establish. I originally centred the text with the octopus taking the centre position. However, as I did this I realised that without the ‘Seas’ in the middle it looked off-centre and I couldn’t figure out what to do- hence why the positioning is slightly to the left.
Moreover, with the spacing affecting how the design would come across I thought about how I could change it while still making it readable. This gave me the idea of individually separating the word ‘Ink’. Shown above, I think that this works a lot better than the previous design which used two wheels to divide up every word. The ‘High Seas’ is still recognisable and readable, and with the separation of ‘Ink’ it emphasises the type of brand while still creating a continuous design that compliments each other.
Thus, with the juxtaposition of the serif text against the boldness of the octopus graphic I feel that this works as an identity of the brand and could be used as the logo because it is easily recognisable. I’m happy with how the ship wheel graphic divides up the lines, and with the simplistic and minimalist composition I think it would appeal to the younger end of the target audience while still representing the tattoo identity for it to appeal all ages.