Where is Derek?

I have been working in vamping up the logos for OKF and FS and here we are:

My OKF logo was recieved very well but the older people making the final decision said that my design was too modern and wanted a more traditional logo that had architectural implications instead of the strong engineering element of my design so I took a shot and tried to keep the intial spirit of my original logo. What do you think?

Here I separated the ‘O’ and the ‘K’ and made the negative space in the center of the ‘O’ look like a vessel in which molten metal is held safely and securely. The angles of the ‘K’ mimic the roofline of the foundry. The line that breaks up the ‘O’ represents the pathway in which the liquid metal reaches the mold. This logo is the static version.

The next version implies pouring of the liquid metal and the angle of approach contours the rooftop theme of the logo.

These two versions play off the double laddle pour that was in the media images of OKF in 1954. The second logo has a cog in the negative space to represent casting engineering parts.

The last version is a new concept. I was thinking, I could reference the name of the foundry more and since the name is O.K. I did a play on words and created a checkmark. The concept here is what if the logo is a quality seal. I put a checkmark to reference that whatever has this mark has passed the high standards of OKF. Maybe I am reaching but you never know. I still feel I can make this logo simplier. What do you think?

As for the FS logo. I tried to combine Japanese Hiragana with the letter ‘F’. I thought of this because the webzine is mainly in Japanese and no one came up with the idea. I have mixed feelings but I gave it a shot. I am getting bored and my logos are looking the same. I need new inspiration and trying to do typography with Kanji was interesting and different but gave me a headache. Anyways, here is what I came up with.

This version’s style is a bit over done but I gave it a shot anyway. Half-tone dots and hand manipulation. Blurring the meaning from Japanese, what the Japanese person sees first and the English, what the English speaker sees first.

The next version is just a clear graphic of the logo. It looks graffiti-esque but this is a street fashion webzine afterall.

I will take a break for a few days because my eyes hurt. Nobody knows how much time I have put into these logos better than my eyes.

[ Life.Iz.Good ]

I have been possessed by the design demons and I have done another project. This time for a Tokyo web based fashion magazine called FashionSnap. Here are two initial logo concepts. I am tired but I had to put my ideas out to them before someone else does.

FIrst one, based on Helvetica Neue’s ‘F’:

The next one is based on Didot’s beautiful typeface:

This is enough for today. I will revist TMP tomorrow. My goodness, another day focused on dayum triangle!

[ Life.Iz.Good ]