This week I used my design thinking skills to create a logo for Coffey’s Corner Book Reviews. Coffey’s Corner provides book reviews on the latest books in the industry.
Before designing the logo, There were several factors that I needed to consider. I thought about my audience, audience takeaway, emotions, competitors, and brand objectives that I wanted to convey.
Before the design
Most avid readers can attest to being in a relaxed and comfortable environment. I wanted my logo to resemble a carefree, relaxed, and simple design that involved books and coffee in some way. I knew that I didn’t want anything with ridged lines or bold colors. Most readers like to go with the flow with whatever they are reading, so I went for curvey and fluid lines to construct the book in the background.
After looking at multiple Instagram and Website logos, most book bloggers use selfies or images of books as their profile picture. By having a design as a logo sets me apart from the competition and adds a level of professionalism.
The brand objective is to reflect books and reviews first, then add the elements of coffee. “Not only does a logo serve as a label, but it also conveys a message about the brand’s image” (Landa, 2019, p. 244). By emphasizing the literature, the audience knows that Coffey’s Corner offers book reviews and isn’t a coffee shop.
The design
I first started with several sketches that focused on creating a bookish reading corner with a cup of coffee on a table. After much deliberation, I scrapped the idea because it didn’t suggest anything about book reviews.
I then looked at several examples of logos to get inspiration. Kelly Morr, Chris Parish, and Karla Darling offered great insight into some fantastic and creative logos.
I knew I wanted to do something fluid and relaxed but still resembled my theme of coffee and books; I just didn’t know what. To pass the time, I chose the color palette to be monochromatic tans and browns. Since coffee is brown, and the pages of older books have a tan tint, the two colors worked well together.
After coming up with new sketches of coffee mugs, book stacks, bookshelves, I decided that those were still too complicated and detailed. If I were to convert the files to grayscale, the design looked confusing and busy. I then broke down the design to just an open book.
After illustrating the book, I wanted to include coffee cups somewhere. I decided to add two to the pages of the book.
I chose a fluid paint burst to create the design and lowered the opacity. By placing Coffey’s Corner over the design book, it creates depth and adds an extra layer to the logo.
When choosing the typography, I knew I wanted to find a font with heavy serifs for “Coffey’s Corner” and san serifs for “Book Reviews” to add contrasting fonts. When I stumbled upon Imprint MT Shadow, I knew it was the font for my main title. The windows on the left side of each symbol offers more fluidity. To contrast, I used Lao MN for the subtitle. If you look closely, some lines are thin, and some are thick, which goes perfectly with my fluid theme.
The final result
Overall, I wanted something simple, fluid, relaxed and coffee and book-themed.
References:
Darling, K. (2017). 40 Creative and Memorable Logo Designs to Inspire You. Retrieved from https://visme.co/blog/logo-samples/
Landa, R. (2019). Branding and Visual Identity. Graphic design solutions (6th ed.) (pg. 238-284). Australia: Cengage.
Morr, K. (2019, December 16). 99 best logos for creative inspiration. Retrieved from https://99designs.com/blog/creative-inspiration/best-creative-logos/
Paish, C. (2020, January 24). Top 10 of the World’s Most Famous Logos and What You Can Learn From Them. Retrieved from https://99designs.com/blog/logo-branding/famous-logos/
Jennifer Coffey 
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