Logo Exploration
The logo is the main identifying mark of a company or brand, but it is not the brand. The colors chosen for the brand link to the American flag and to the Americans love winners psyche. Skeeter Kicks is about speed, power, and grace so I wanted its logo to reflect those same ideals. The mark also needed to be on par with the major players in the athletic footwear industry.
Competitor Logo Analysis
Compiled a sheet of some of the most popular and well known brands in the athletic footwear industry. This is an important stage because evaluating the competition provides the chance to look at trends and commonalities in the market, which can also highlight opportunities for differentiation.
Logo Sketching Phase
Brainstorming sketches involved spitballing ideas in order to empty the mind and explore possibilities. A brand narrative was developed before sketching began and this helped to direct or guide the direction of the designs. Speed, power, and grace were part of the narrative and the sketches reflect this.
Promising Designs
The sketches were narrowed down to three of the most promising designs and then refined in order to provide more clarity. These sketches were created traditionally, with pencil and paper and a black sharpie. I still find it quicker using traditional techniques instead of going digital at this stage.
Logo Refinement
Here the sketches were refined even further. The traditional sketches were cleaned up using Adobe Photoshop and then vectorized using Adobe Illustrator. In this phase of development, I started testing out different fonts, in hopes of capturing the sense of speed exhibited by the brand and I also began experimenting with taglines.
Variations
At this stage, further tweaks and refinements were finalized for each logo. Variations for each logo were created featuring black & white, outline, and full color. After carful consideration, logo #22 won out because I felt that it embodied the essence of the Skeeter Kicks brand the most effectively and I believe that this logo is on par with the logos of the industry competition.
Real World Application- Special Edition Shoe Box
Here, the transparent version of the logo is applied to a Special Edition Shoe Box. It give the client a good idea of how the logo will look on clear surfaces such as plastic or glass.
Real World Application- Athletic Shoe
The Skeeter Kicks logo is applied to its signature shoe design. Placement of the logo on the side of the sneaker is a traditional position location for most shoes in the industry. The placement here is only for visualization and can easily be moved or even scaled up or down.
Real World Application- Skeeter Kicks Outlet Store
This full color version of the logo is placed above the entrance of the Skeeter Kicks Outlet Store. The color tones in this image reflect the color palette of the brand that were established in the Athletic moodboard.
