As part of SSE's 2020 Rebranding Campaign, I was tasked with creating new logos for all of SSE's divisions. For my first logo design, I worked with SSE's newly created tech solutions organization, Cardinal Labs.
As a student-run tech solutions company, Cardinal Labs' (CL) student developer teams work with on-campus organization to build custom web apps. Launched in summer 2019 as SSE's newest division, a big part of CL's work involves interfacing with clients and pitching their portfolio to them. That is why they needed a visual identity that they could rely on to brand their product. As SSE's Creative Manager and Graphic Designer, I worked with CL to design their logo.
The first part of the logo design involved conducting research to figure out what CL was beneath the surface. I wanted to get at the main aspects of CL's work to try to better understand the organization and its values. Working with the CL team, we discussed what CL should ideally evoke to a person who first hears about it (or sees the logo). We also discussed the significance of the word 'Labs' in the organization's name and how it suited the work that the organization was doing.
Based on the research, I set forward three main goals for the logo design: First, the design should appear 'modern', 'techy' and 'zesty' - the three most common words that cropped up when I asked what CL's logo should ideally evoke. I interpreted this to mean that the design should follow modern design trends, fall in line with the technical nature of the organization's work and intrigue viewers. For the last one, I decided that I wanted to create something that would offer a bit of a story: there would be a subtle narrative in the logo that would create more depth and complexity. Second, the design should encompass the full range of Labs' work. Instead of just focusing on engineering or development, the logo should cover all three app creation tasks that Cardinal Labs' takes care off in its projects: development, product management and design.
Finally, the design should be visually consistent with Cardinal Labs' parent organization, SSE. One of the motivations behind the entire logo design campaign was to push the recent rebranding efforts of SSE and ASSU all the way to their sub-divisions. Therefore, I wanted CL's new logo to have some sort of consistency (through color, font, shapes etc.) with the newly redesigned SSE logo.
This design visualizes the three branches of Cardinal Labs: development, management and design.
- The development aspect is represented through an HTML <> tag, a recognizable feature of web development.
- The tag is made to look like a three-dimensional encasing of a box, which represents the cohesive management that is at the core of CL’s mission.
- Featured within the box are three simplified rectangular panels, collectivized to represent a wireframe – a typical feature of UI/UX design.
Lemon
#FCDE80
Mango
#F1B142
Turquoise
#10B5BB
Royal Navy
#14253E
There are 4 main color shades used in the design mark. The HTML <> tag contains the turquoise used in the newly designed SSE logo (for consistency with SSE) and a navy blue. The navy blue helps to establish a three-dimensional look by creating shadows. The wireframe panels inside the tag feature gradients of a mango and lemon color. In addition to adding visual clarity to the wireframe, these gradients fall in line with modern design trends.
This was my first logo design project. Before this, I worked on the SSE rebranding campaign for two months. One of my responsibilities as a member of the rebranding team was to coordinate with the official design agency hired by SSE to develop the organization's new logo. In this job, I watched the various practices used by the agency for the logo design process, including the research collection, option presentation, feedback collection and handing off of final deliverables.
I learnt a lot by observing how the design agency went about each ones of these tasks and worked their best practices into my own logo design process. Naturally though, every person has their own process. While I did incorporate several techniques used by the design agency, I combined them with my own workflow practices to achieve what I thought was the best outcome. Moral of the story? Mix and Match the tried and the untested. It can work out pretty well.