MonLogo Workshop

26 April 2009

I was recently invited by my friend and fellow graphic designer Toffe to do a workshop with a class of 3rd year design students from the ESAD Art School in Strasbourg, France, and chose to make them work on a subject I care about immensely: logos. We had 4 days in total, with a week in between, to complete the workshop. I started by showing them what makes a logo good (timelessness, simplicity, impact at any size, in any color, flexibility of use, etc…), and what makes a bad logo (just think UPS redesign and you get the point).

Then I asked them to create a logo for themselves, using their name, their initials, or any symbol they thought would represent who they are in the most simple and efficient manner.

After the first 2 days pretty much everyone had come up with a neat pictogram, usable in black & white, devoid of shadows and swooshes, strong and simple. The next step was to put these logos in the trickiest of all situations, i.e. together with dozens of others on a small area.

So for the next week we got a Rover Metro Special from a scrapyard:

Cleaned it and repainted some bits:

Found a way to apply all the logos onto it, as if they were sponsors of a car racing team:

Got some vinyl stickers made, in 2 colors only, and positioned them on the car:

Then stuck them on carefully:

And finally got all the students to push me at the wheel of the car (it had no engine) in the school courtyard for a celebratory handbrake turn:

I am really happy with the final result:

We even did a screen printed poster to commemorate: