Logo Design & Packaging : GLO CFLs & LEDs

GLO is a manufacturer of CFL and LED lighting fixtures and they got in touch with me for the design of their logo and primary packaging.

The brief

The client had finalized the brand name and had some ideas for the logo itself. Those ideas needed to be fleshed out and the following images will give a clear picture of the progression of the branding assignment.

Following are some of the logos the client liked and shared as references.

While it is easy to ask the client to complete a creative brief questionnaire – answer a list of questions to understand where the branding assignment needs to start – it is not a simple task to quite know what they are thinking. To aid that process, I ask clients to share visual references of other identity systems they have seen and logos they have liked. I also ask them to tell me why they made those choices – what appealed to them, what were they thinking etc. While this is still a “vague” method of capturing their thoughts, it is a great way to immediately know a mental framework of where my clients are coming from.

Following are some of the logos the client disliked and shared as references.

[ Just for the sake of written clarification : none of the logos seen in the above two images have been designed at asidebrands. ]

Sketches

The first round of sketches is always an eye-opener for the sketcher as well as the client.

Both parties learn more about what the other is thinking. Hence, this stage equips both parties to handle each other better so that the final outcome benefits the brand better.

This is what the first round of sketches looked like on this branding assignment.

All notes written by hand have been written by me to give more clarity to the client about what I was thinking when I sketched those shapes. Feedback after the sketches leads to either another round of sketches or the first round of more final-looking versions of the sketches that the client was more inclined toward.

First Draft of Logo Designs

At this point in the branding assignment, the client is leaning toward a particular visual identity solution but would like to see some variations of maybe one additional option that they like. Iterations in design and sketching are part of a typical visual identity assignment and you can see the same process in the many previous case studies that have been published on aside.

Second Draft of Logo Designs

Further designs and ideas are always based on client feedback but there are times when an idea might strike me that has not been discussed previously. As a branding specialist, my goal is to always recommend and suggest solutions that I believe will be ideal for the brand and the human brain does not stop thinking just because the work day is over. No 9-5 restrictions on creativity!

Third Draft of Logo Designs

From the above iterations, you can tell that both the designer and the client are leaning toward a particular shape / visual. Usually this means that the next iteration will be the final iteration before a final shape is approved for the logo. The original design as suggested by the client was, in this case, the visual that both the designer and the client ended up using. And the next iteration was to determine colors and possible final tweaks to the chosen visual.

Fourth Draft of Logo Designs

You’ll notice there’s a slight tweak in the original shape that was liked. That tweak added the missing characteristic that makes the logo unique even though it stemmed from a cliched use of “light” rays.

The following is one iteration to show what the logo would look like when applied to various backgrounds.

The primary packaging design as shown to the client was as follows – with a visual look at the iterations from how it started to how it closed. The client will be developing their packaging based on this.

The Final Logo

[ All red and blue borders are to denote the aside branding and are not part of the branding design assignment for GLO. ]