Toons On Tap Gets a New Look

The good news: the organizers behind TAAFI wanted a copy of the Toons On Tap logo for their website.  The bad news: this was our current logo.

Featured on one poster and never used since.

With a good reason for a redesign, I headed to the nearest library to borrow The Big Book of Logos 4.  Browsing through the massive collection, I scanned and collected my favourite designs.  A common theme was forming.

From The Big Book of Logos 4.

I was drawn to clean, geometric designs - especially circles.  The text was either all in uppercase or all in lowercase - no capitalization.  To my surprise, I was really liking bright orange.  Notably, I preferred logos that hinted at the company name through their design.  In particular, I liked the suggestion of a cockroach in the orange R-shaped Roach logo.  

Before moving forward, I asked Jeremy which of my favourites he liked as well.  In his opinion, the strongest design was for Norman Design Studio.  His reasoning: the simple symmetry.  Then, I proceeded to make a vomit dump of ideas in Photoshop.

I must have been craving Tim Horton's

Jeremy gently informed me that all but one were irredeemably horrible.  The only idea he liked was the bulldog clip and blue circle design with lowercase Helvetica Neue Ultralight.  However, we would need to change the graphic.

We brainstormed images that could represent Toons On Tap.  Shot glasses.  Sketchbooks.  Maybe even  a gesture drawing.  Yet, the simplest idea of ours was the strongest: a blank sheet of animation paper.  Life drawing for animators, implied by a white rectangle with Acme punched holes.

Then, I got an idea.  We could continue with the circle design to create personalized business cards for the team.  I made three simple images to represent Jeremy, Jeffrey, and myself.  Jeremy was best summed up by his ball cap, v-neck sweaters, and cheery personality.  Jeffrey, in contrast, is all long hair, t-shirts, and snarky eyebrows.  For myself, I included my ridiculous fake eyelashes and bleach blond hair. 

Going forward, I would like to try two ideas with our new logo.  First, we could create animated cycles within the circle for a logo in motion.  Second, cryptic 'teaser' images could be used to announce upcoming sessions.  The hours I've wasted playing Icon Pop Quiz are seeping into my brain.

Guess the theme