Logo RE-DESIGN - The client is always right!
Health eMarkets are a company trading in the health sector. Their core business is based mainly around the online selling of products via e-mail and the internet. They came to us as part of our Free Logo Health Check scheme. The Logo Health Check is a FREE Design Clinic run by Right Angle giving people a professional assessment of their logo.
 ORIGINAL LOGO - BY ANOTHER AGENCY
CASE STUDY / ASSESSMENT
Name: 'Health eMarkets' + excellent!
Logo: Health eMarkets Ltd - OK
Typeface: Sans Serif regular & bold + good
Colours: Dark Blue + good
Case Notes:
When Right Angle assessed 'Health eMarkets' logo we found that it had a lot of merit: The name was excellent, it was very memorable and linked directly to their core business. The sans serif typeface and dark blue colourways worked well, projecting a reasonably professional image. However, we felt that the logo itself was imbalanced and although not awful, it was just OK.
A good logo should be memorable, relevant to your core business and send a message to your customers about the quality of the service you provide. This one was just a little bit forgettable and average, with no real link or relevance to 'Health' and the only link to 'electronic Markets' was a very small, understated, lower case 'e'.
The client had an allocated space on their website http://www.arthritissupermarket.co.uk for the logo to fit and the brief called for evolution not revolution. We were very confident that we could come up with a better solution and so we took the project on. Here's a step by step account of how we approached the re-design process:
HEALTH eMARKETS DESIGN SOLUTION - STEP BY STEP:
STEP 1: DESIGN CONCEPT: The first step was to do some design sketches and try to work out a way to develop a memorable and relevant visual link to either 'Health' or 'eMarkets'.
We very quickly hit on the idea of an electronic 'e' symbol in the style of an '@' from an e-mail address forming the main part of the logo, which gives a strong visual link back to e-mails, website addresses and the electronic age.
STEP 2: DESIGN DEVELOPMENT: Once we had the design concept solved, we were ready to create the new symbol & logo:
First we tackled the symbol, we stayed with a sans serif typeface but chose Futura Light, a more elegant font than the bold one used in the original design. We took an 'e' and an '@' from Futura Light and combined them to form our NEW electronic 'e' symbol.
The 'paths' didn't match exactly so we had to completely re-draw them in Photoshop. We used a series of circles to ensure that the line weight stayed constant along the line of the new curve.
Next step was to test out which fonts and weights worked best with our new 'e' symbol and at what emphasis they should be used. In the version on the left, we tried 'Swiss 721 Black' but kept it smaller than the 'e'. Moving left to right, we tried 'Swiss Heavy', then finally 'Swiss Bold', versions with the 'e' symbol lining up with & projecting above and below the cap height of the 'H' & 'M'.
Then we worked through various options of how best to design the 'Health eMarkets' sub text, using caps versus upper & lower case, rule dividers and reversed out text boxes.
Once we'd arrived at our favorite version, we tested how well it worked down at a small size and decided that the 'e' symbol was getting lost & starting to fill in when reversed. We then produced options with stronger 'e' symbols and settled on the final version marked *.
Only when a design is finished and works well in black & white, should you start to explore colour options. Colour can totally change a design and introducing it too early may sidetrack you and send you in totally the wrong direction.
At this point we got the client involved with the colour options. On this occasion our client liked the dark blue and magenta option, but felt it was possibly too fashionable for their market. They asked to see a deeper red with the dark blue and chose that as the final version.
STEP 3: DIGITAL ARTWORK: We actually felt that the dark blue and deeper red clashed slightly in the reversed out lozenge and weren't as easy on the eye as a mid range colour out of a dark colour would have been. However, we feel it still works very well, colour is a highly personal thing and it is the client after all, who has to live with the logo on a daily basis going forward.
For the Health eMarkets corporate stationery, we introduced a dynamic tinted 'e' symbol into the background of the letterhead and compliment slip. We believe that the client now has a memorable and relevant identity which should last them for many years to come (see our 'Ryman' 20 year anniversary blog).
It's important to remember that the client IS always right and as with life, biting your lip and choosing your battles is usually wiser in the long term than getting into aesthetic arguments about colour where there are seldom definitive right or
wrong answers.
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