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Monkey Business - The Identity
Fire_Fox
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So I have been working on this for a couple days and I need a reality check.
I am working on a corporate identity for MonkeyBusinessCards.com.
My plan is to create a cute monkey. I plan on coloring it similarly to the this one:
Note I didn't spend a lot of time on it but I think it conveys the idea. The glass 3d'ish style. I also have these other monkeys some good some bad.
What I am looking for is:
Do you like any of them?
I am looking for cute and clever does any here have that potential?
Do I need to do a complete work over? Suggestions?
As you can tell from my painting I am not that experienced... Is there a good tutorial on how to make this thing come to life?
Thanks
edit: more monkeys
I am working on a corporate identity for MonkeyBusinessCards.com.
My plan is to create a cute monkey. I plan on coloring it similarly to the this one:
Note I didn't spend a lot of time on it but I think it conveys the idea. The glass 3d'ish style. I also have these other monkeys some good some bad.
What I am looking for is:
Do you like any of them?
I am looking for cute and clever does any here have that potential?
Do I need to do a complete work over? Suggestions?
As you can tell from my painting I am not that experienced... Is there a good tutorial on how to make this thing come to life?
Thanks
edit: more monkeys
Fire_Fox on
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And yeah, I forgot the damned things nose holes.
Nonsense!
I agree, thanks... I am trying to get the monkey down for now. I do plan on adding other elements to it to make it more memorable. But my main focus right now is the monkey.
Chris thanks for the comments.
I have worked on it a little more... And I think this might be a little more what I am going for crits on it would be awesome!
Suppose they had to scale any of these drawings. Neither the line art nor the colors will scale well. Also, depending on what paper you're printing on and what kind of printer you're using the colors will greatly vary if you keep going down the full color road.
My advice, make a logo that works in black and white. Think that one day, someone will have to fax that monkey. Once you have that down, work on a 2 - 3 color pallet that is complementary to the logo the company may have or to their corporate colors.
Bada-bing-bada-boom. Instant monkey.
Yes! That is what I am looking for. Now what makes a logo work in black and white? Am I at all close with the last one or do you think I need to start from scratch? And if so are there any rules I should be following?
To MagicToaster you listen, save you it can.
A logo works well when you can make out what it is in a single color, i.e. as a shilouhette.
There are no rules for making a logo, you just do something that your client likes and get payed. However there are guidelines that will help you make a concept that much stronger. The first thing I'd look into is color: What are the company colors? How can I integrate them into the design. Perhaps there are some graphics elements that are worth incorporating into the design.
After I have this, I'd start sketching logo ideas till I have a selection of drawings that are very different from one another. Your drawings right now all look very much the same, only small variations. If you have a bigger selection of styles you can present them to your client and ask them which one they like. When you have that, finalize it in the graphical program of your choice... though I'd recomend working in vectors.
Making logos is tough! So don't feel bad if you have to reach out for some reference material. I go to this page when I need a sponsor's logo in a design, it gives you fully scalable vector files. I guess you could use it as a reference, but DON'T steal bits and pieces of logos. That was someone's hard work, too! There are also lots of books you could get at any store that have a huuuuge compilation of logos that you can use as inspiration.
Beware of using gradients and dropshadows. They not only look tack and will age the logo, but they also print badly in many circumstances. That's all I have to say... I have no other advice.... except work in CMYK.
Hope this helps!
What are you drawing this in? Because it will need to be vector. Guaranteed. At the very most, you'll want two different brown tones, which means two different Pantone colors - you should be selecting your colors from a Pantone library always when working toward spot color. Come up with your design, lay in your black, then create your color fills which can be used or dropped depending on the budget and whim of your client. Give them treatments - the single-color logo and the color version, with accompanying separations and ink color guidelines.
Overall the design itself is alright, although the ear on the left (ours, not his) is creating a bit of an uncomfortable tangent with the cheek. I'd make the linework a little more playful, vary up the weight a bit, but don't let them ever get thinner than the lines you have for the eyebrows right now or else you'll have some issues when it comes time to actually print it at a smaller size.
man, ain't nothing more important in design work than starting from a solid starting point so that your end product is compatible with your output methods.
so hell yes to pre-press
Here are some fresh Ideas along with a rework. Let me know what you think, please.
First the rework(done in illustrator:
Some Silhouettes(pen and marker):
Messing around with letters(again pen and marker):
Not sure what you're shooting for with the silhouette, but it gives me an idea I want to sketch out a bit and see if it has any merit - essentially, what about combining the silhouette of the monkey into the shape of an M, to start the word "Monkey".
The type treatments you have down there... they don't really do anything for me. They're illegible and don't convey anything about the theme at all, other than looking "sorta urban, sorta like I got bored in math"
now that that is out of the way (just a thought), here's a couple points to look at with the face logo - at this point, I'd show what you have to the client to see if that's what they're looking for, before you go in and start ironing out the wrinkles - make sure these are hours well spent. You might wanna show them a few other treatments, as well. Use the old technique - start off with your weakest and build to what you like best, and explain why.
First, the red lines. They're basically where you have odd "kinks" or portions of your line where the curve doesn't seem to be following the path of the rest of the line, or where it isn't tapering quite as smoothly as the rest.
The green arrows are showing the direction your lines are moving on the top of the head and the smile. On the top of the head, I'd play with how the line expands - at the second arrow is where (in my opinion) the line should be the thickest and where it begins to taper rather quickly to its current end size.
The green line in the teeth, I'd thicken a bit at the start of where the teeth meet and have it get thinner as it goes.
The yellow lines in the teeth point out the difference in the angle and line you're approaching the sides of the teeth with - curved on the right, straight as an arrow on the left. I'd work to get a little more symetry between the two.
The blue circles are pointing out a portion of negative space to keep an eye on. As one side gets wider, the other gets smaller and it makes it appear that his head is turned. THis can be tweaked to your own effect, but having a similar size here will give it a bit more uniformity.
Finally, the blue lines - on the left, they point to the two black lines and the negative space between. At the point where they meet up with the line of the cheek, they should be almost exactly the same size - white space included. Same with the lines on the right, although the inner-most line can afford to be heavier, since it isn't terminating into another line but rather continuing after an acute angle to become the cheek, chin and wrap around.
The last point of contention is the circles around the eyes - they don't tend to have smooth curves, when looked at closely, but have a few points where they seem to jump around a bit.
Again, this is just me being anal about stuff like this. Most people would never, ever notice these little tweaks, but they make the difference between a good design and a professional design. As I said, talk to your client and see if this is the direction they want to go in before spending the time working on anal little details like this, but if they do it might be worth your time hammering them out.