Logo Development

For the past week or so I have been focusing my efforts on developing a strong logo for the Beard & Blade brand, with the intention of incorporating the brands personality and values whilst remaining simplistic, aesthetically pleasing, easy to read quickly and recognisable. I started by doodling several simplistic elements by drawing on my associations and symbols that would represent the brand, the obvious choice for this is the two concepts of 'beards' and 'blades' to fully visualise the brand name. The images below show my development, considering numerous styles, layouts and concepts.

These logo examples all have factors about them that I like, some more than others, and so I needed help to decide which one to go for or which one to develop further. I asked around in a similar way to how I did when deciding on the brand name, for people to offer their opinions and insights into which one they preferred when given context about who the brand is, what they sell etc. A couple of designs presented themselves as the top contenders, and ultimately I then decided between them, to go for this design:

I decided upon this design because many of the comments I got from it associated it with the beard looking like a badge of honour which I think is a positive thing for the brand associations as it is a masculine brand and we want the consumers to feel a sense of pride at being involved, as if they are in a club. People also appreciated the design element of having the word 'blade' be cut off by a blade itself, which I think is a clever way to portray the meaning of the word with the visual representation and really makes this design stand out. The composition and layout also works well in my opinion, as I did go through several designs with similar concepts, however, none of them quite looked right or didn't flow, which I think this one does.

I also chose to do the design in a solid black rather than a colour, as I wanted it to be bold and stand out for it to be used on a variety of backgrounds without getting lost or confused with the other colour elements going on within the visual identity.