Logo Back Story

It's hard to believe, but the logo for Papa's Sports Lounge started with the designs above (as per the original client project submission) but through a serious of rigorous design phases, morphed into the 'Pirate' version shown below. Sometimes it's interesting to see how the design process evolved, and how a corporate identity changes from being just a part of of company, to being the theme of the company itself.

The logo for this company wasn't for a new venture. Far from it. Papa's has been around for years and they wanted to 're-brand' in order to take their establishment to a new level. They wanted a simple 'shield type' logo and one that contained the essential ingredients of the business - sports betting and casino. Fair enough. Our designers worked up a series of preliminary designs (some of which are shown top right) with the typical sports logos and icons. After we suggested that the client broaden the logo somewhat, we developed a 'Papa' character - little bald dude with one of those huge 'Number 1' foam gloves that are so popular with sports fans. After a few minor revisions, we began to add a wider range of colour (the original brief called for a spot colour treatment). Once colour was added the client decided that we needed more elements that portrayed their lounge - a bag of cash, a drink and a card table. The logo now risked being cluttered and 'trite'. How many more elements can you fit into a design after all?

That's when the project came to a shuddering halt. After consultation with some small business marketing types, it had been decided that the entire theme of the lounge was going to be changed. No little bald dude. No foam gloves allowed. No sir. The theme of the lounge was going to be that of a Pirate's Cove. Yikes. Now the logo we had developed didn't work at all - on any level. A completely new project was started, this time zeroing in on the character himself - Papa - who had now morphed from a fairly nondescript fellah, to a very specific type of character - a Pirate. The new project brief was much descriptive - the character was not to appear menacing, nor 'too friendly' - typical of a cartoon logo. Other than the rapidly approaching deadline, not a big deal.

After a series of character illustrations and sketches, the client settled on the character seen here. Once that stage of the design process was completed, all that was left was the additional of appropriate font work (inside a Pirate's flag, natch) and a nice background to wrap it all together. As part of the project, our designers also developed a Treasure Map themed beauty shot design (above). More restaurant logos can be found in our gallery.

Logo design process mini-examples 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | Next >

Top of page