OUGD403 - Studio Brief 01 - Initial sketches

My initial sketches for my logotype experiment with the use of ligatures, accents and diacritics, and two proposed typefaces; Futura and Bodoni.

As a starting point, I decided to experiment with various accents found in different languages, where to place them and how this could potentially put emphasis on certain parts of the word, such as over individual letters as well as between two letters to almost connect them.

Fig. 1. Initial experimentation with Bodoni and the use of accents.

From the sketches displayed in Fig. 1, I decided to focus on the accented u, as I felt that this worked the best in connecting and putting emphasis on individual letters, but also makes reference to the origins of the word presume as coming from the Latin praesumere which typically has an accented u.

Fig. 2. Initial experimentation with Bodoni and Futura, the use of
ligatures and kerning.

I mainly focused on creating ligatures from the letters s, u and m because I felt that these worked well together and were the those letters which have the most emphasis put onto them when the word is spoken. This is also heightened through the use of the accent. (Fig. 2).
Bodoni being a serif font, allowed me to connect words into ligatures through the serifs of individual letterforms. It is also a traditional font in terms of character and suggests class or luxury, therefore making it a suitable typeface for use in a perfume brand. However, Futura also worked well in suggesting cleanliness and a more contemporary look, so with my target audience being young adult females I decided to start focusing more on this typeface rather than Bodoni (Fig. 3).

Fig. 3. Initial experimentation with Futura, incorporating ligatures
and kerning.

The above initial idea sketches were shown during an interim crit session and the feedback I received was largely varied, with some preferring the use of Bodoni whilst others preferred Futura, commenting that they both suggest class and luxury. However, one piece of feedback from this session suggested that I tried adding serifs to Futura in order to combine the two typefaces, as well as to give the font it's own sense of tradition and class. (Fig. 4).

Fig. 4. Experimentation with adding serifs to Futura
and suggested ligatures.

At first glace I felt this design looked more of a cheap brand trying to look sophisticated, however further feedback showed people thought this design suggested a sense of elegance. So I decided to work with this idea, keeping the kerning fairly equally spaced so that the ligature would not look too disjointed. This then went on to form the basis of my final logotype designs.