Design Case Studies 12th December 07
Written by Tara: Freelance Designer on Wednesday, 12 of December , 2007 at 10:58 am
Design Case Studies is a feature where graphic designers/illustrators are invited to show off a piece of work and talk us through their design process from initial ideas through to their final design. Andrew Davies (pictured left) is featured this week and talks about one of his designs.
1. Your Name?
Andrew Davies
2. Your Location (City and Country)?
Savannah , GA
3. Your Website or Blog URL?
website: www.iamparagon.com
blog: www.paragonblog.com
4. Project Title?
Madgenius Inc. logo and stationery
5. What was the brief?
Create a corporate identity for a new advertising agency, MadGENIUS Inc.
6. What sort of research did you do?
The name “MadGENIUS” immediately conjures up images of labs, test tubes beakers etc so I started there and looked for images that helped create that sense of scientific experimentation.
7. How did you start? (eg. planning, brainstorming, sketching, moodboards etc) Please supply images of planning/sketching stage.
After research I always follow with sketches. But thankfully had the help of the other creatives at the agency who also threw in some of their ideas.
One even took a picture of his face, which I used as the basis for one of the sketches. Some of them are shown below.
8. Where did your inspiration come from?
The style loosely came from some cartoons of mad scientists I found (first image) as well as iconic Russian constructivism (below) using heavy geometric shapes and sharp angles.
9. Where did you go from here? (talk through with client, work up visuals etc)
After the initial round of design concepts (below) to try out some different directions.
There were several rounds of revisions, some shown below.
10. How did you present the concepts? What sort of feed back did you get from the client?
Since I was an in-house designer at the time I just sent rounds of emails out to the other stake-holders and got feedback either by email or when I managed to round them all up for a crit session.
11. Where did the design project go from here?
After a few rounds we started to gravitate toward the character of the Mad Genius, spokesperson of the agency, and so began to flesh out how we wanted to pose him. (below) It was one of the sales guys who came up with the idea of using the shadow of the Mad Genius projected against a wall. With that idea the underlying story for the logo became that we happened to have caught the Mad Genius at that moment of discovery as he bursts through his lab door finger pointing in the air, shouting, “Eureka!”
12. What are your thoughts on the final design are you pleased with the outcome/anything you would like to change?
I’m satisfied with the final logo design and how it was subsequently propogated throughout the other other brand elements. (see stationery below) Of course there are always nit-picky things you want to improve on designs you’ve done in the past, But I’m happy with it.
If you would like to take part in Design Case Studies Please read this post.
Category: Design Inspiration, General Graphic Design
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Made Wednesday, 12 of December , 2007 at 4:14 pm
[…] over at Graphic Design Blog has a series going on called Design Case Studies where designers can share the process behind some […]
Comment by Robert
Made Wednesday, 12 of December , 2007 at 7:44 pm
Andrew I really appreciate the insight into your process! I always learn new techniques to improve my own workflow when I read about fellow designers problem solving methods.
Comment by eli
Made Wednesday, 12 of December , 2007 at 10:47 pm
I liked seeing the refined sketches the most but the final design is… um… Genius!?!
Comment by Andrew
Made Thursday, 13 of December , 2007 at 10:32 pm
thanks Robert.
Me too, I’ve always “taken” when it came to these kind of articles (where designers show the behind-the-scenes stuff ) and I thought I’d try and “give” this time around.
Comment by Amanda Vlahakis
Made Thursday, 13 of December , 2007 at 11:32 pm
I really enjoyed seeing your sketches and viewing all the stages, thanks for taking the time to show this.
It was also really cool to see your reference finds.
I love the final version, but there are several of the other designs that I really like as well, the client was spoilt for choice! 
Comment by Robert
Made Tuesday, 18 of December , 2007 at 2:30 pm
I like the way you work A LOT!. Final result is stunning. Cheers:)
Comment by JasonP
Made Wednesday, 19 of December , 2007 at 4:36 pm
Robert,
you may want to check out some of Ronald Kurniawan design work. He is a LA-based designer with some work concerning the new landscape movement coming out of Pop Surrealism. Its very inspirational work.