Last week I was driving down 34th and came across a sign that said Bangkok Thai Restaurant. It was black text on a white sign, and there were actually two of them, a round one on the building, and a rectangular on facing the street. I felt like that a restaurant should have better signs so I decided to make them. As you can see I made both of the signs, one round, and one rectangular. Because the rectangular one faces the street, I felt like it should include the address and the phone number.
The first thing to be noticed on the design is the contrast of colors. I actually received some help from the internet in choosing the colors I would use. Someone on the internet decided to create a color palette for thai food, so I chose Pad Thai, the most well known that dish, and used the colors that were in that dish. http://www.colourlovers.com/blog/2007/11/12/colors-of-global-cuisine-thailand/ I chose to use three of the colors, described here simply as a light brown, an orange, and a green. I felt that these colors contrasted well because not only did they feel like warm colors, but they did a great job representing the food itself. The background originally started off as a solid color, but it just lessened the impact of the other colors in the logo, so I decided to add an effect that broke it up and added small amounts of white to the whole thing.
The second important concept was alignment. Because the round logo goes on the actual building, I felt that it should be very simple and just include an image and the name of the restaurant. For the round logo I placed the image of Thailand in the dead center, but aligned the text in a unique way. Using the idea of power zones, combined with traditional American reading order, I decided to place the objects in a diagonal line, heading from northwest to southeast. “Bangkok” was placed in a corner, because it is the strongest power zone, since reader’s eyes always start there. The eyes would then go to the image in the center, and continue to the bottom right corner to “Thai Restaurant” I also decided to curve the text along with the logo, as it would create a stronger visual connection.
For the rectangular logo, I decided to include more information, so I added the address and the phone number. Since this sign faces the street, I felt that it should be more like a business card, and used some of those ideas. I decided not to place the image on the left side, since it would be in the power zone and therefore detract attention from the text. I therefore placed it on the right side, and decided to center the text in the empty space. Because I did not feel that the image of Thailand created a hard edge, I felt that aligning the text right would now work very well, as the white space would be uneven.
I was very happy with the pair of logos I managed to create, and await plenty of feedback.
Of course, few Americans can tell you exactly where Bangkok is, or Thailand. Might put a dot or something where the city is. Instead, they may associate elephants with the location, which is why another team in the course went with http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lCbDc1VukIQ/TVR9oHRk4nI/AAAAAAAAACs/HzCRiAJtKgI/s1600/Page1.jpg. A few notes on your design:
ReplyDelete- need more space around the sign; this will be a backlit sign and they tend to not look good, especially, without "whitespace" around the content
- in many ways, the rectangular one is far better, for these reasons: cost and readability. As you write on first seeing, you were driving past. That's primary-consideration-1: can your sign be read from a moving car at a distance. Not sure, for instance, that the space around the phone number makes the phone number very easy. I could see many people driving by, needing to call the place from their cell to see the hours, and if that can't be done quickly, then it's on to another place like Cap-Rock on the same street. So, balancing something that looks cultural or authentic with clarity of reading with cost efficiency is important. Round designs that are not straight up and down text are very hard to read while moving, and are more expensive to build. We're talking about $5-7k for one of these backlit signs, hung.
- the colors are well considered
- vary the font style to make more clear; use ariel or times new roman, for instance, on the address and phone
- what about a website URL that could link people to the menu?
- good thinking about the powerzone upper left
- could use more about the rhetoric and context of the sign, such as the placement
- btw, if you're interested, see a sign I helped design in Lubbock: the sign outside the Endless Sun on 82nd east of Frankford; built it about 2 years ago