619 miles

Sweet Reese logo progression

As I learned in my class, Creating an Identity (Nicole's Classes), a final logo doesn't start off perfectly. Sweet Reese is an all natural, homemade dog biscuit company, so I brainstormed as many words that came to mind that related to this. I was initially hesitant to use such a traditional shape as the dog bone for the logo, but as I sketched it out I came up with something that I thought was pretty interesting. 

Once I uploaded it to Adobe Illustrator I wasn't having as much success getting the logo to match up with the feel of the original sketches. Melanie (our class instructor) gave some feedback and I went back to the computer and came up with a couple more options and finally one that I thought captured the essence of my original sketch. It clearly identified that it was dog related (bone shape), but it also had that handmade and playful quality that I wanted to capture. YAY!

This entire process took WEEKS to go through it all. Brainstorming, gathering inspiration, sketching, drawing in the computer, back to brainstorming, back to the computer and then came trying to pick colors. I have to admit, I went with this color scheme because I love that shade of blue. I chose brown because I was thinking of a natural kraft bag or box for packaging.

I love seeing the progression of all the versions side by side. 

continuing education | creating an identity

I just finished my third class from Nicole's Classes and it, like the others, was so much fun! I took a class called "Creating and Identity" that was taught by the super awesome Melanie Burk, the genius behind Fifth and Hazel. 

{image via Nicole's Classes}

The classes are taught through videos that you can watch at your own pace and each week you have homework assignments to put into practice the week's lessons. There are also live chats each week with the instructor and fellow students in the class. This is my third class and the first one where I was really able to get involved with the live chats. They were so great not only because you can ask the instructor questions, but you also get to interact with other students.

Another aspect of these classes that I really enjoy is that you post your homework to a gallery each week. This allows you to follow along with other students and their progress, which I think is super fun and inspirational. Within the gallery students can comment on each others work and share their techniques in addition to the instructor giving feedback on each homework assignment.

I have to admit that I am not the best student, and I often "behind" throughout the 5 weeks. This wasn't much of an issue because Melanie (and any other Nicole's classes instructor) is also available via email. Melanie was super sweet in giving me feedback via email a couple of times when I was doing multiple weeks homework at once.

In this class we were to create an identity for a client and their company. It could be a real client, ourselves or something completely made up. I chose to have myself as the client with an "imaginary" company. However I love what I came up with so much that I really want to use it in the "real world" somehow! The company is called Sweet Reese and is an all natural, homemade dog biscuit company.

Here is the style sheet for Sweet Reese, designed by yours truly:

What do you think? I had another design that was a favorite too. I'll come back and show the progression of the logo. It's pretty cool to see how it changed throughout my edits.

If you're debating about the classes and have questions, feel free to ask me. I've taken Typography, Illustrator 101 and Creating an Identity.