A Small Branding Exercise. Mo. 

It's a nickname that I've had since school. The story goes; My second name is Cosgriff, which was shortened to Cozzie. The pronunciation of 'Cozzie' sounds much like 'Quasi', i.e - Quasimodo. You can see where this is going... Cozzie-Modo got shortened to Modo, Modo got shortened to Mo, and Mo it has been ever since. It's a nice nickname, one that I've been fond of since it's inception (luckily). 

Recently, as a little side project, i wanted to do a brand exercise for this name, one that i could use in all my independent artistic endeavours. Here is where I'm at so far.  

The aspiration was to keep it simple, bold, and scalable. I also wanted it to have some symbolism that resonated with me personally (why not, right? This is a personal project after all).

The idea was to make sure this logo had enough cut-through and presence to be noticed when placed against more chaotic backgrounds. I wanted it to work well in isolation or as a piece to a larger asset. 

The colour used in the example above is not the colour palette that the logo is locked into. In fact, I made the conscious decision not to entrench this logo into any particular colour palette but, rather, allow it the freedom to work organically with whatever backdrop it is placed against. I wanted the shape and form of the logo to be it's sole identifier - like the swoosh, the golden arches, the apple.

In order to understand how well the form of this logo performs when used in different scenarios, I decided to create a number of desktop backgrounds. Initially i set out to make one or two but, this process turned out to be more fun than anticipated. 

So far I have 12. Some a more standout that others but, they all work. Admittedly I have slightly cheated... The backgrounds have had a gaussian blur applied to them. This accentuates the sharp lines and amplifies it cut through. 

Here are some examples: 

Whilst this application of the logo would work on pretty much any blurred background, I wanted to continue on with the personal theme so, I selected images from my personal albums. Each of the scenes that feature here have some significance, a fragment of a memory of an emotion. 

Here are some more: 

I love the current state of this logo however, there is still a couple of modifications I want to make 

- Golden Ratio design. The vector for this logo was built loosely. I'd love to go back and reconstruct the same logo only, tightening it up a bit using the golden ratio. 

- Real World Renders - Can't wait to do to some real world application renders. I'm thinking big for this one. I want to see this logo on the side of a skyscraper. 

- Flipping the lens - I want to produce some examples of where the chaos lies within the form of the logo and the serenity of solid colour (or subtle gradient) exists outside of it. Coincidentia oppositorum.

Stay tuned...