Week 3- creating the brand designs- logo research and creation. Creating the brands look and researching shoe designs/looks

Week 4- development of shoe designs from sketches to digital outcomes

Creating the brand

Trademark/logo research

I started by looking at a book called 'American Trademark designs', it shows a collection of 732 American trademarks and symbols that widely represent the past and current trends in American trademark design. The marks are arranged in categories that include entertainment, education, real estate, insurance, food and beverage, retailing, transportation, utilities, heavy industry, and others, and are chosen from local and internationally known examples.

One particlur page that caught my eye was the page on the 'Pepsi' trademark as it showed the evolution of the logo from a less legiable old design to a clean modern logo today. This bookhas showed me the importance of having a simple, clean and legiable logo as if I was to see the old Pepsi logo today, it would take me longer to asccoicate a particular brand.

Trademarks/logos on my shoes

To help give me inspiration on what my brands trademark should look like, I looked at the branding on y current shoe wear. Most of my shoes are from Nike however there is different branding for each model of shoe. Most of the shoes follow the same structure in terms of the locations of their trademarks e.g. the togue, heel and side.

What the trademark looks like isn't all what goes into creating a trademark, the meaning of the name in conjunction with the image is also important as this back up the brands ethos. For example Nike means In Greek mythology, Nike is the Winged Goddess of Victory. The logo is derived from goddess' wing,'swoosh', which symbolises the sound of speed, movement, power and motivation.

Trademarks of my clothing

I also looked at the trademarks on the clothing I own to help me further understand the art of trademarking. It is important for a brand to have a variety of changes to the trademark they can make e.g. the middle right logo is the Carhartt logo but so is the top middle, this allows the brand to pick the best way to show the trademark for each product.

Taking what I have learnt about trademarks to creating my brand

I started by writing down my brands ethos e.g. a brand that is sustainable, customizable, future minded.

After brainstorming many names, my two favourites were 'Distinct' and 'RE_'. The thinking behind 'RE_' was it standing for multiple meanings e.g. Re_cycle, Re_start, Re_build, Re_newable.

The thinking behind the name "Disitinct' is that it represents the meaning/ethos of my brand well. distinct indicates that something is distinguished by the mind or eye as being apart or different from others. I want my shoe wear brand to be different from the others e.g. be sustainable and be customizable, therefore the name Distinct coukd work well.

Visualizing the names

With the 'RE' logo, I kept it quite simple in terms of the logo and played o the dash '_ and :' to represent the multiple meanings. I experiemented a lot with the Distinct logo and played on this idea of a dash wheel with only one section filled in to represent the multiple options my shoe wear brand will have the customer.

Digitlizing the logos

My favourite RE logo is the bottom right as it is clean, simple and effective. I have also created a arrow indent within the E that imples the brand is 'moving forward'.

The main Distinct logo is a simple furturistic font in the bottom right and then i have got some sub logos to go with it such as the dash circle and then the two arrows to show 'different directions' e.g. with this brand you can go different directions.

Further developing the logo

Taking a differnt approach, I looked at the branding on the Travis Scott air Jordans as they have a hand draw logo, which I really like, so I played around by drawing up teh Distinct lettering by hand.

The final trademarks

By creating multiple versions of one trademark, gives me a lot of vercatility later on e.g. for advertisments and branding on different parts of the shoes. The meaning behind the top right logo is to show that the shoes my brand will create will have multiple options through customizability. The fact one section of the circle of dashes is white impiles that a certain mode is be used. The 1 that is crossed out again portrays this as its not going to be just '1' shoe.

Primary research-

My shoes

Before starting to design my brands shoes, I decided to firstly look at what shoes I like e.g. wear. Looking at the shoes as a whole, it is evident that I either go with a black or white shoe, this is because I can match these shoes easily. My personal favourite is the Nike Airforce with changable Nike swooshes (top left), this is due to the versatility the shoe gives me. I can wear them with the standard black swooshes which makes them look like normal black airforce but I then add the coloured versions to match with particular outfits. The changable swooshes makes this shoe 5 different shoes which means the environment is benefited as shoes with different colours do not need to be purchased. I have two different versions of the same shoe with the Nike Airforce Goretex

My friends shoes

I asked some of my friends to send me pictures of their favourite shoes their own, to help me get a better understanding of what trainers my age group likes (younger generation). One of the key things I noticed was the reflective elements that is present on a couple of the shoes.

My girl friends shoes

I also asked a few of my girl friends that to send me some images as I want my shoe brand to be inclusive to everyone. More complex designs are present within these images for example the Nike tn's (the top left and bottom left) have these curved lines that rap around the whole shoe.

Overall most of the shoes me and my friends have are one solid colour e.g. black or white with touches of colour. The main reason for this in my opinion is the younger generation (16-25) typically have less money so having a black or white shoe that goes with anything rather then a bright bold pair that is harder to match with clothing is beneficial.

Mood board of shoes I like- Secondary research

Although looking at the shoes I personally own helped me understand what I liked, my shoe collection is not very big. Therefore I created a mood board of a vast array of shoes to help be further understand what shoes I like. Overall the theme of a mostly black or white shoe with touches ofcolour is promoenet, with a few execptions for example the multiple coloured shaun weatherspoons Nike air max 97s (far right second from the bottom). One of my favourite element of a shoe within this mood board is the Nike air max with a transparent toe box as it allows the customer to chnage the colour of the shoe through wearing different sock colours.

Elements of shoes mood board

One of the main parts of my shoe wear brand is going to be the custom elements the shoe wear have. I made is mood board of a selection of shoes that have 'customizable/changeable elements. The Nike Airforce have changeable swooshes, the off white x Nike zoom fly has a transparent meshing, the KAWS x Jordan has a glow in the dark bottom.

Initial drawings

3 minute sketches-I tried to draw an array of different designs e.g. complex to simple. The Birds-eye view angle was harder to do as they had to match with the previous side angle sketches. I did these sketches in 3 minutes to challenge myself and get all my ideas out on paper rather than spending ages on certain details.

Adding colour

I set a time limit of 2 minutes for adding colour- I kept a theme throughout these designs e.g. a neutral base colour- black/white with highlights of colour.

Refined designs

Taking what I have learnt from my previous quite quick sketches, I drew up 4 designs digitally and allowed my self a longer time limit of 5 minutes.

Different look

I inverted the sketches to see what my designs would look like in black as I want to release a black and white shoe with customizable elements that add colour.

Adding colour

I also added an array of colours to my designs to make the shoes have a more realistic aesthetic, which would help me pick a design to develop further.

The selected design

I want to develop this design further as I believe it has a great mixture of simple and complex elements as well as working with the current and future sneaker trends.

The different views

I then sketched the different angles of my selected design, this was very challenging as the different angles had to work with the side view profile. One design element I believe is notable is the two different sub logos on the heel of the design as it further adds to a unique aesthetic.

Inverse version