OUGD505: Design Practice 2 - The Academy Museum (Logo)

____

I intend to brand the Academy museum which is currently under construction in Los Angeles. One pro of the museum being unfinished but public knowledge is that I can use the information from the Academy website to feed into my design work. The museum already has a logo but I think that I can produce something better. I originally envisioned the logo to use an extravagant typeface for the word Academy and a modern sans serif font for the rest of the museum branding. I looked at my options for decorative fonts on Dafont and came up with two options:

Chopin Script:

Exmouth:

I chose these fonts simply because of the letter A that each had to offer. I like the A of Chopin Script but feel that the rest of the typeface is too bold and too fussy. Exmouth however, has a much less fussy A but the rest of the typeface fits very well with the uppercase. Out of the two I think that Exmouth is the best option for me to use, I also think that it will work better with the sans serif because it is more subtle. 

I put together a design sheet of possible logo ideas for the museum and presented it at the final crit. I used Exmouth primarily but I did create some that were more modern and used sans serif only. I wanted to do this because I had been told that an decorative font might be too much for the museum and as film is forever evolving a more modern font might be preferred. 

Design sheet:

The results from the crit was split between 3 and 10. These are both completely different which left me stuck and confused about what to do, I thought it would make sense to come up with a combination of the two. 

I am very happy with the outcome but I think that I should choose between one or the other rather than trying to merge two styles. I am using a similar concept for my exhibition and I want it to be a one of a kind logo. My personal preference would be to use the decorative logo because that is what I first envisioned the branding to look like, I do like the more modern logo though as it highlights the film industry, I could argue that the decorative logo also represents this with the sans serif font surrounding it. I think that by using the decorative font it highlights the prestige of the Academy, what they stand for and the Oscars themselves. 

Final logo alterations:

I am happy with my logo choice but I noticed some imperfections with the typeface Exmouth, particularly where letters joined into each other. I used the pen tool to smooth out these imperfections.

Before:

After:

I used the rulers and grid options to ensure that my logo was consistent and the spacing was correct throughout. 

Final Logo design:

I am very happy with the final logo design and I think that it will work very well throughout the museum branding. The next thing that I need to do is to create a set of brand guidelines for my museum, this will include colour schemes, stock choice and logo misuse.