Logo!

[valetoile]

At the advertising committee meeting last night, we discussed creating a logo. We decided that first we would offer up the challenge, with guidelines and encouragement, to you guys, the Austin improv community. We a lot of talented and skillful folks here. Brainstorm, collaborate, see what you can come up with!

John sent me a template for a creative brief (industry guidelines for creating a graphic) which I have filled out. Use this as your starting point, and if you have anything to add or change, let's talk!

If we haven't been able to satisfactorily resolve the logo issue by mid January, we'll hold a contest for local design students at UT, ACC, and other colleges with graphic design programs.

Have at it!

Creative Brief
Key Fact (succinctly explain the reason behind the need for the creative)
Austin Improv needs a recognizable and unique logo for use in advertising and promotions.
The Problem (list the major obstacle(s) that this creative will have to overcome in order to be successful)
The logo needs to be easily reproducible in black and white or one or two colors, in small or large resizing. really really cool looking, and incorporate the feeling and idea of improv in Austin
The Objective (explain what is this creative supposed to solve for)
We would like a graphic logo and/or a text logo. These could be separate or combined. The motto may or may not be incorporated.
The Tone (feeling and language that we should express in the copy and design)
The motto of Austin improv is “Everything from Nothing.â€

[arclight]

Branding is vitally important; I'd pay someone who understands logo design to create one.

[acrouch]

I would pay a lot of people to do a lot of things if we had the cash. Since we don't, I believe that coming up with a logo is something that we're capable of. At least making a good start that we can then turn over to a professional to polish.

Nice brief, Val. Very comprehensive.

[sirnoze]

Great stuff Val. I took a few moments to "yes and" your brief and attempted to give a little more context behind the Key Fact and clarify the Audience. (Read below)

We should be clear as to if we want the words "AUSTIN IMPROV" incorporated into the design. My take is yes ... we want to incorporate "AUSTIN IMPROV" in the design because ultimately, that is what we want people to remember when seeing the logo. And, we should also be clear as to if we want the design to include the motto of "Everything from Nothing." My take is ... that's a 'nice to have' but not a 'must-have.' My fear is the logo design could get clunky if it includes the motto. Then again a great design could find a way to include the motto without it looking clunky or horsy. (Yes, horsy.)

AUSTIN IMPROV | Logo | Creative Brief

Key Fact
The Austin Improv scene is gaining momentum. More people are attending shows. More Austin-based Improv troupes are forming. And more people are taking Improv classes. Much like improv, this activity has been happening spontaneously without following a “script.â€

[valetoile]

I envision our logo as one of these three things:

1. Mostly text-based: The typeface and positioning of the letters of our name create the identity. Eg:


(Coca Cola)

2. Mostly graphical: We have a recognizable graphic logo that can be easily recognized independent of the name. The name can be used in conjunction with the logo or not. The name itself is less design-heavy, probably just a signature font. Initially the name and graphic would be used together, then ideally the graphic could stand on its own. Eg:


(Upright Citizen's Brigade)

3. An integrated text/image logo, where one could not be easily separated from the other. Eg:


(French's mustard etc.)

The motto could be tacked on to any of these when wanted in our signature font. I would most like a logo in the style of number 2, as I think it would be the most flexible, and I think number three is the least flexible.

[deroosisonfire]

The motto could be tacked on to any of these when wanted in our signature font. I would most like a logo in the style of number 2, as I think it would be the most flexible, and I think number three is the least flexible.

i totally agree with val on this. i think that having a stand-alone image is the easiest sort of logo to work with. it's easy to pick an austin improv font and put that under or over the logo if necessary, hard to do some branding stuff if we have all these pictures and words we have to stuff in.

[sirnoze]

Ya know ... along with a creative brief ... it might be helpful to include a few logos we think work and a few logos we think don't work. This would potentially help focus the would-be designer's creative.

In the marketing work I have done in the past, many times we would also include a "WORKS/DOESN'T WORK" sheet of images (logos) to better illustrate the thinking that went into the creative brief.

Valeire has us started down this path ... are there any other logos we think WORK and ones we think DOESN'T WORK?


johnmoore

[valetoile]

I'd like to see what people come up with independently before we give too much direction. I think the brief is enough to spark creativity. If you give too many examples, it starts to limit creativity.

[sara farr]

I took a stab at drawing some thumbnails for the Austin Improv logo. Are there any here that you guys like? (I've numbered them so you can refer to the # -- there's 74 total.)

~Sara

[eplischke]

I just started looking at these and so far I really like #16.

[phlounderphil]

i really like #63 a WHOLE lot. I love the idea of a glass half-full, but vertically, that's pretty damn cool. Although, I wonder if there would be a way to do that as a photograph rather than a drawing.

Just imagine,

A half-full glass with the words - Austin Improv - Everything from Nothing underneath or whereever...I really like that.

[kaci_beeler]

So far my favorites are:
#29 or 30, the stage and lighting of the letters, simple but implying the performance aspect of improv
#41 is awesome, I really like the simple design with the "out of thin air" concept, I think it's meaning comes across well, which is what we'd want, yeah?
And the smiley face ones are pretty darn cute.

[kbadr]

I would vote against the spotlight designs, only because they make me think of stand-up comedy (especially if there's a brick-texture behind the spotlight)

41 is my favorite so far, I think.

Is there any way we can get the letters A and I to clump comically, and have a relationship between 2 people in a non-geographic location?

[kbadr]

I just had an idea for a logo that I'm going to throw up here for someone more artistically inclined.

The idea was to somehow incorporate the idea of destroying a script in our logo. For example, showing a script getting fed into a shredder, and have the strips coming out the other side form the "A I" or have "A I" written on the shreds. That probably doesn't make any sense, so I may need to draw it so you can see what the hell I'm talking about.

[erikamay]

sara - thank you for kicking this off and doing all that comp work. schweet!

i like #15...i was thinking that it could be rendered in chalk on a side walk and the containers for the AI letters would look like squares drawn in hopscotch.

this gets at a couple of things i think are cool about improv:

1. like hopscotch, we make it up from nothing and use our invention(s) for play
2. it implies a playfulness associatied with kids (as most improvisers i know havent let go of their childlike playfulness), and
3. it projects a cool 'urban' feeling (the sidewalk and hopscotch game)

e