PPJ Logo: The Process Report

Last month I did a logo design for Wise Guys events for their game, Pickpocket Junction.  They were submitting the game to a festival and needed the finished product in three days.  I laid out a schedule that could get us to that deadline and we worked together (through e-mail correspondence) to create a logo that would be satisfactory to all of us.  I thought it would be nice to lay out the process of creating their logo as an example of how I work.

On day one, we discussed the kind of design they were looking for and I drew up some preliminary thumbnails in Illustrator (in matching grayscale, so color wouldn't create a bias):

From there, we discussed which designs they preferred.  The center column was the one they decided to go with, though they asked me to incorporate the "floating hat" look seen in the left-column designs. They also suggested adding some train station imagery to better suit the theme of the game.  The arcing arms made a nice tunnel, so in the designs I sent them on day two, I added a train and some tracks:

The train was a hit (it's my favorite part of the logo too!) so after another quick e-mail exchange, we had settled on the elements of the design and just needed to pick the color palette.  They wanted the pick-pocketed items to look like the colored cards used in the game and we discussed how the whole design could reflect those colors as well. These are the color options I sent back later on day two:

The second color palette was my favorite, visually, but we all decided the third choice better captured the old-timey feel the game would have.  I added multiple colored cards to that design to brighten it up a little, which the Wise Guys decided they wanted to see in the final design. 

And here is the final design that I sent them on day three (with my watermark here):

 

 I wasn't totally happy with how dark the train was, so I changed its colors slightly for the final.  I also cleaned up the train tracks and recolored the cards to the clients' specifications.  Three days turned out to be just enough time to get through the various stages of the process, and I'm happy to report the Wise Guys were very pleased with the final product!