The client approached me to design the branding for their new medical management and communication platform. They needed a logo that was both professional and friendly, as it would be both doctor- and patient-facing. The design needed to be robust and adaptable enough to accommodate potential growth of the brand and its product offering.
The final logo was designed to be recognisable when either the logomark or the logotype is used separately. While a brand colour palette was developed, the logo also needed to be as impactful in monochrome as in colour. The design we went with evokes feeling of warmth, ease, and comfort, while maintaining a clean, clear, and concise professionalism.
From the start of the project, the client had made it clear that they wanted a logo that used both a logomark and a logotype to form the full logo. The clean and simple logomark (icon), contrasts boldly against the more organic and familiar logotype (text logo).
I wanted the design to make use of elegant and consistent spacing. Throughout the design process, I explored how the two parts could maintain their own identity, while also coming together to form the whole logo. The minimal design of the logomark, informed how I manipulated elements of the text in the logotype to adjust for spacing and clarity.
The dimensions in the image below show how the various dimensions of the logo and the spacing between items create visual harmony. This also served as a strong guideline for how the logo and its individual parts could be used in both web and print media.
The client clearly communicated that they needed their logo to make the patients of their clients - medical doctors - to feel comfortable when encountering the brand. Their platform is a novel way for handling doctor-client interaction, and knew that the introduction of any new product is met with hesitance and suspicion. The logo needed to feel clinical and professional, without losing the 'human touch'.
From the start of the project, I had specific ideas for the design of the logotype, or text logo. I likened the ideas of safety and warmth to the letterforms serif typefaces, that feel established and recognisable. Before this project, I had been exploring the beautiful EB Garamond typeface, enjoying the flow and design of both the individual letters, as well as how they interact with one another.1
I presented the client with several options, explaining the rationale behind each. Eventually they agreed that EB Garamond would be ideal to begin building the logo from, and that it met their criteria for the brand's image. Quite early on, we decided that the logo would be in lowercase, as it felt both modern, friendly, and informal.
I began to play around with the kerning (letter spacing) of the individual letters, trying to find a balance between the varying shapes of each. The serif typeface and the use of a heavy font weight allowed me to utilise very tight spacing, while still maintaining legibility and impact. The design eventually began to move away from its parent typeface, and take on an identity of its own.
Once I had settled on the spacing, I converted the logo to vector curves, and systematically began shifting and simplifying its constituent points and handles. This allowed me to clean up some of the variation in the letters that make EB Garamond ideal for body copy, but less so at a larger size. I also consolidated various elements of the letters themselves, such that each corner, edge, and rounding became more consistent.
Once the whole logo came together, the logotype's design was subtly adjusted once more, to better accommodate its spacing and layout. This was also a back-and-forth process, but ultimately led to a very robust and coherent design.
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