INK BIG is a New Zealand based company specializing in Large canvas printing and stretching. The quality of their craftsmanship is second to none. I can attest to that being a customer myself.

Dave Lashlie, the founder of INK BIG came to see me one fine day and we happened upon talking about logo design. I actually wasn’t aware of INK BIG’s logo, but when I first saw it I knew something had to be done. No disrespect to Dave, his vision is printing and he is also a keen photographer, but he is the first to admit that design is not his strong point.

He asked me to take a look at his branding (see the original logo above) and I was more than happy to oblige.

My first concept was to use a pallette that resembled the inks found in his top of the line Canon printers. What with INK in the name and INK-jets being a large part of the business this seemed like the logical route. I also had the idea to coin the phrase ‘Think Big”…by dropping out the ‘Th’ before the ‘INK’ creating a play with the company name and it’s roots. Dave kinda liked this, but he really wanted to keep the trademark splatter that his old brand and his customers had grown accustomed to. Fair play.

After several attempts of trying to ‘re-create’ and ‘update’ the old style logo, it was time to start afresh…trying to invigorate an already not-so-good logo wasn’t my best idea. So with that in mind it was simply a case of combining a fresh, grungy splatter, a font with an edge to it and keeping the slogan ‘Bigger is Better’ to maximum effect. My choice of colours were print related Cyan, Magenta and Yellow. with the predominant colour closest to the red of the original logo.

When I sent the logo design over to Dave, I honestly thought he wouldn’t like it. Never under estimate your client. He LOVED it! (that is pretty much verbatim from his email by the way).

Another happy customer.

Brand design is something I have always enjoyed doing for my clients. A rewarding experience that is heightened when you know that your client is going out on a limb to kick-start their own personal dream.

Red Kitchen is a café, gourmet deli market and a cookschool all under one roof.

It is rare to be brought in on a project from it’s inception but it is something I would recommend to all of my clients. Be open to fresh eyes from trusted sources as early as possible (that doesn’t mean asking your Great Aunt Tess what ideas she has by the way).

The brief was handed to me once a name was settled on and we began working on preliminary ideas for a logo.

Some of the key concepts from the client included words like sophistication, organic and clean lines. A guidline to include no food or photography and a colour palette of chocolate browns, organic clean colours and a bit of red. The red emblem was something that I created that the client really liked so it was integrated into the logo design quite early in the process.

A tiled background was requested as you can see a first draft on the top right image above. I initially thought of kitchen tiles as my inspiration however the client wanted to see something like floating tiles behind the logo. I continued to play with ideas, some were working and others just weren’t, as you can see.

The process of designing a logo is very much like designing anything else. A process of elimination, problem solving, working closely alongside the client, doing your very best to recreate the vision that they have in their minds eye. It is all part of the fun. The challenge of design is a welcome one here at ps|studio!

Another element that was requested for designing was a multi purpose sticker for use on food packaging to seal bags…

Using the emblem designed from the get go, these little stickers may even make an appearance on other printed matter and even the website. I have also suggested to the client that they could be used as their ’seal of approval’ which was well received.

Once a design was approved and tweaked It was time to work on the letter heads and business cards. Because the look and feel is now well established out of my first two submissions one was chosen straight away. A nice feeling to know you are on the same wavelength with your client…

Red Kitchen are set to launch in New Zealand in early 2010.