Logo design case studies
If ever there was a classic example of a cartoon logo developed by our designs, the project for Tek Op is it. Created for a California based IT company, the design for Tek Op (originally submitted as Nerd Squad) began as all our illustrative logos do - as a series of sketches and doodles, drawn by hand before the designer so much as touches their copy of Adobe Illustrator. As the character is going to be pivotal to the company brand, it's critical that the initial sketches nail down the mascot - in this case a monkey - before being turning into digital artwork. Only by drawing these kinds of logos by hand can we give them 'life' - cartoon characters created completely in design software tend to have a mechanical appearance.

It's all in the personality
During several illustration phases, our designers began to envision the mascot as a 'bionic' monkey - in keeping with the hi-tech nature of the company. Once we had settled on this direction for the character (above right) we needed to get his personality down pat, creating a series of character studies. Each featured different expressions that could also be utilized in situational illustrations and graphics.

Once we had worked out the personality of the monkey, and his faces and expressions, it was time to render the entire character into vector based artwork, using scanned versions of our original sketches to work from. Once that was completed, it was simply a matter of adding the company name and several design 'flourishes' to complete the mark.

This project began its life as a logo for Nerd Squad, but was changed mid-stride into Tek Op because of conflicting trademarks and so many companies using similar names (you'd be surprised how many times this occurs mid way through logo design projects). After consulting with powers that be, the client settled on a new name - Tek Op - and we had to incorporate the new name into the artwork. We also took the opportunity to develop the character a little further, removing some extraneous detail from the illustration.

Stationery design - business cards and letterheads
Once we had finalized the logo, it's generally on to developing business cards, letterheads and other marketing bits and pieces. In the case of Tek Op, we created a series of business card design options that the client could pick from - we often like to design business cards first, and then tailor the rest of the stationery to fit. In this case, we were working with four colour, and designed a series of card backs as well.

Once the client had selected their favourite card design, we set about designing the letterheads and matching envelopes. Nothing terribly busy - the logo contains enough detail and we didn't want to clutter the designs up with too many conflicting elements. Below is the completed stationery kit consisting of business cards, letterhead and envelope.

Vehicle wraps are becoming increasingly popular as companies try to find new ways to promote themselves using already available avenues - the company car for example. Using photo reference of the kind of vehicle owned by the client, we were able to visualize how we'd like the artwork to appear. Once finalized, we can reverse engineer the design into the appropriate vehicle wrap template and send the artwork off to be output. As all our logos and support artwork are in vector format, there's no issue about resolution or scaling.

Icons and Flash animation
Using a similar style and graphic approach, our designers then built a series of web icons for use in brochures, advertising and as navigation icons on the Tek Op website. As the icons depicted all the company services, we also incorporated them into a fairly slick logo animation. Click here to view. See here for more icon design examples.

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