my logos in colour (finally!)

Finally, after many many trials and errors (thanks to my incompetency of using Illustrator, we'll get to that sme other time) i have finally completed 2 logos in colour!!! woo hoo!!! *clap clap clap clap*

ok....it looks too small.... but nevertheless, i did it anyway!!!!! this is LOGO 2

this is LOGO 3

For LOGO 2: well, as you can see, my logo spells out the word 'coffee'. the straws in the cup spell out 'ff'. the face on the left shows a tired, sad face. it shows how someone is tired and not in a good mood after a long day of work or school... but after a cup of Starbucks coffee....and tada! all rejuvenated, happy and perked up! you can see that expression on the face on the right side, notice the coffee moustahce showing that the face just had a sip of Starbucks coffee. instead of using a traditional coffee cup, i used the famous Starbucks product, the ice blended Frappuccino.

for LOGO 3: Now, remember from my last post (new sketches), i wanted to design a logo that resembles the chinese character '咖' . if you look carefully, the 2 orange slashes in the middle (at the yellow cup) resembles '力' . the logo also spells out 'coffee', the '2 orange slashes' are actually 'ff' btw... unlike LOGO 2, i used a traditional coffee cup for this design, the brown part is the lip stain left on the cup, normally seen after drinking coffee. the 2 faces and their expressions also have a similiar concept with LOGO 2.


"It's about being the third place: home, work, and Starbucks--the place in between," said an employee. Although this is not an official motto for Starbucks, it is part of the employee indoctrination. "They try to teach us about creating the third place. Starbucks is somewhere where people can be just as comfortable as at home or work--this is a transition place to relax in."

i based my design on the unofficial motto of Starbucks. the 3rd place for everyone who's had a long day of hard work, but dont feel like going back home yet; a place for you to uniwnd and relax which leads us to the use of colour:

ORANGE because it shows energy, inviting, joy, friendliness, happiness, emotional lift, cheerfulness and mood-lightening

YELLOW because it shows sunshine, joy, happinessenergy, cheerfulness and optimism

BROWN because it represents the coffee in the cup but it also shows friendships, home, comfort, tranquility and nurturing

(taken from http://www.sibagraphics.com/colour.php)

The double straws in LOGO 2 not only spell out 'ff' but it also shows how you can share a cuppa with a friend, signifying that Starbucks, other than being a relaxing place, it is also a friendly environment where you can mingle and share.

new designs!!

here are a few more new sketches for my redesigned logo!

SKETCH 1

SKECTH 2

SKETCH 3

SKECTH 4

if you noticed, all of them look like they are in the structure of left-center-right. for example, there's a face on the left side, a cup in the center and another face on the right. or for the skecth above, its a building on the left side , a cup in the center and a house on the right. now, why this kind of format?? well, its based on one of the Chinese characters for the word 'coffee'. why chinese characters?? well, for one, it's one of the 3 main races in Malaysia, second, there's the infamous kopitiam made popular by the Malaysian chinese and thrid, I'M A MALAYSIAN CHINESE!

'coffee' in chinese is written '咖啡' (sorry, i dont have chinese typing software, this is copy and pasted from the web). notice the first word '咖' (pronounced 'ka'), the left and right has the character ' 口 ' while the character in the middle is '力' . 咖啡 is a literal translation from coffee, it is pronounced 'ka fei' which sounds similiar to 'ko-fi' (coffee).

what's interesting about the word is that coincidentally, the character ' 口 ' means mouth while the character '力' means energy or power. so i designed faces with a big mouth with a cup of coffee (which gives you energy) in the middle. see the connection??

oh you saw the word kopitiam in the previous paragraph? it's proudly a malaysian thing (and maybe singapore) A kopitiam is a traditional breakfast and coffee shop found in Malaysia and Singapore. The word is derived from the Malay word for coffee and the Hokkien dialect word for shop (店, tiàm). Menus typically feature simple offerings: a variety of foods based on egg, toasts with planta and kaya, plus coffee, tea and Milo. the kopitiams in Malaysia usually refers to the Malaysian chinese coffee shops and the food are usually Malaysian chinese cuisine. it's usually a very informal (definitely informal) and laidback place. you can just go to one in a sloppy shirt with shorts and slippers and sit there and enjoy your food and drink.

That's the signboard for Starbucks in China

why hands?

ok, so in my last post, i showed my sketches of my re-designed Starbuck logo. The reason i chose the hands is because when malays here greet each other or beri salam, they'll use both hands in a motion like they are about to accept something and meet with the other person's hands to beri salam, after that, both hands are taken back in the direction towards the heart.

Al-Sanoosi said in Ikmaal al-Mu’allim (1/244): “What is meant by salaam is the greeting between people, which sows seeds of love and friendship in their hearts, as does giving food. There may be some weakness in the heart of one of them, which is dispelled when he is greeted, or there may be some hostility, which is turned to friendship by the greeting.”
(taken from http://www.lutonmuslims.co.uk/salaam.htm)

i find this definition most suitable to why and how malays beri salam. the logo is to show friendship, warmth and love which we can get just from a cup of coffee made by the barista with care. as you can see, the logo only has 1 hand on each side, i wanted to let it have a simple and easy look. i used right hands in the logo as using the left hand to accept or give something in malay custom is rude.

my skecthes

ah, here are a few sketches of my re-designed logo!!

this is my first design (its suppose to be vertical)

this is the 2nd one, i just roughly re-skecthed it and took the picture with my camera phone. (this too is suppose to be vertical)

no pee-quod for me!

Let me explain what exactly do i need to do for this assignment. i am required to redesign an international logo (the choices are given by my lecturer, Dr. Ken) to a more localized one. what it means actually, is that if the company were to start off from Malaysia, how would the logo look like?? i have chosen Starbucks's logo for this assignment....oddly enough, everyone has chosen this logo too...oh well.



Here is the history of the Starbucks logo. It is the image of a siren with 'twin-tails' . Originally it looked like an authentic 15th century European woodcut, the Starbucks siren was topless and had a fully visible double fish tail. Then, in the second version, which was used from 1987-92, her breasts were covered by her flowing hair, but her navel was still visible, and the fish tail was cropped slightly. In the current version, used since 1992, her navel and breasts are not visible at all, and only vestiges remain of the fish tails. Well, i thought that her fish tails were her arms covered with gloves or something, turns out i was wrong!

But why the name Starbucks then? Well, the name of the company was derived from Moby-Dick, although not in as direct a fashion as many assume. Gordon Bowker liked the name "Pequod" (the ship in the novel), but his then creative partner Terry Heckler responded, "No one's going to drink a cup of Pee-quod!" Heckler suggested "Starbo". Brainstorming with these two ideas resulted in the company being named for the Pequod's first mate, Starbuck.

redesigning a logo

ah...i'm gonna say it like eveyrone else, 'this is my first blog!! yee pee!' i've been toying with the idea of starting a blog, but never had the diligence to constantly update it with posts and stuff. you can see my dusty old 'postings' in my friendster blog. ( i dont consider it a blog really, its all nonsense, literally!!)

oh well, this first blog of mine is for me to document my re-designing of an international company logo. i'll show you (and my lecturers...) the whole nine yards on what i've done (and you'll hear or in this case, read a lot of me complaining about this and that! bwa hahahaha!!!) so...enjoy!!!