Earlier this month we hosted our first logo design battle, where students and staff faced off against each other in an attempt to create the best logo for “The Hunk Alert”.

Armed with markers and our whiteboards, teams had just one hour to conceptualize and execute a logo. The big winners were Candy, Crystal, and Liam with their innovative design concept. Check out how the winning logo!

What was your ideation process?

Our ideation process was mainly rapid firing.  It included 5 minute increments of writing down whatever keywords came to mind with the brand.  Followed by a voting system called “dotmocracy” where we each were allowed to “dot” up to 5 times the keywords that we liked/stood out to us.  Once these “dots” were counted up, we had 5 minutes to group the keywords together to find a common theme.  We concluded 6 common themes: Confidence, Community, Masculinity, Beards, Biceps, and Bowties.

In each of the 6 sections, we drew as many different sketches as we could and 5 minutes later, we picked the top 3 sketches.  With those 3 sketches, we then continued on to just iterate different options based on those ideas.  From those iterations (and there were a lot) we selected our top two in which we then dissected and discussed which would be the best fit for our client.

We were torn between two logos, but we decided to end up with the current one. The reason was that we believe that the logo represented what the client was looking for: community, masculinity, and simplicity. Instead of the usual iconic Movember mustache, we drew a beard that represented the hipster Vancouverite. In addition, we used a chat box to represent the mouth of the logo relating back to The Hunk Alert’s purpose – sending weekly messages challenging users to move more, eat healthier, and feel better.

Where did you draw inspiration from?

Based on the keywords that the client gave us during the brief: Community, Masculinity, Simplicity, and Health.  We took some time prior to the challenge to research the company.

We knew the brand was centered around a chat platform, focusing on men’s health.  We thought that the beard was a good icon that men could identify with, and the chat bubble indicated the company’s mission which is to spread message through word of mouth. The chat bubble has also become a widely recognized icon for mobile chat.  With these two images, the user can have a better understanding of the idea of the app from the logo alone.

We wanted to step out of our comfort zone and test our creativity. Google was a big inspiration for our logo design because Google changes their logo every day on the website and we wanted to do that for The Hunk Alert too.

What are some basic design principles when approaching logo design?

We learned that there are different types of logos: the wordmark, the abstract, the pictorial, and the logo system. When we were hashing out the ideas, we considered the company’s personality, their mission and values. The colour palette and typography were also really important in defining what will be the best design for the client.

What are some of your favourite company logos and why?

Disney. Well known for creating a wordmark logo and font that became so widely known and recognized.

Google. Versatile logo system (like the one we have created). For example, the Halloween themed Google logo, celebrating certain days. Google certainly has a lot of creativity when playing around with their logo everyday!

Fedex. At first glance, it looks like plain text, but there is an arrow in the text between the e and the x! Ever since then, we can’t stop looking at the arrow.

Tell us about your background/experience.

When our instructor told us about the logo battle, we immediately knew that we wanted to be a part of this challenge together. We were half-way through our User Interface & Communications Professional program, and we wanted to see how far our skills can take us. Even though it was a one hour hand drawn logo challenge, we believe the teamwork and organization were the key to our success in winning the competition. We come from all different stretches in life, but we aligned our strengths and went from there.

Candy: Recent SFU Business graduate concentrated in Management Information Systems and Human Resources. Passionate in giving back to the community.

Liam: 6+ years in the customer service industry, long time lover and follower of art and design.

Crystal: 4+ years in visual merchandising/creating window displays, with a passion in developing people.

Join us on Tuesday, November 15th for the private showing of the Moustache Ride Across Canada documentary. RSVP here.

Want to learn more about branding, marketing, and logo design? Check out our full-time UI & Communication Design Program as well as our Digital Marketing Professional program.