The Crib

Today I thought I’d take a look back at one of the projects that I finished just before uni – this time a branding/visual identity job assigned to me by Lancashire County Council. The brief was to create a logo and visual identity guidelines for The Crib @ Burnley Library, a space which opened in 2005 which the council wanted to promote as a venue for creative workshops.

The project was an intensive week long job and consisted of me working alongside library staff and young people who use The Crib to create the general look and feel of the logo and brand. On the first day I set about sketching some ideas for colours, shapes and logos which represented the space…

Admittedly, the first attempts at some logo mockups were a bit dated and cliché. The first used the idea of a ‘ring’, a circular space with a gap for people to enter, which reflected the actual interior design of the space.

The second one was an idea taken from my sketchbook, which made the word ‘Crib’ the prominent feature using some simple yet tacky 3D effects.

I even sunk to the lowly depths of considering an ‘indie’ style logo design.

This may have been a disgrace, but it birthed a new idea which I soon started to hone in on – simply putting text in a circle. I started to experiment with colours, fonts, layouts and extra decoration and came up with a few slightly varied prototypes.

Soon enough the shadow had been simplified to a solid, semi-opaque drop shadow at 45°, but then I began to consider putting it on an angle. Naturally it took a lot of careful consideration before I chose which angle at which to set the logo…

I ended up setting the logo at a 7.5° angle, and eventually settled on the shade of purple to convey creativity and to stand out in the red, yellow and green colour of the space.

And I also put together a set of Visual Identity Guidelines. I hope you enjoyed reading in on my work – be sure to leave a comment, no matter whether you think it’s terrific or terrible.