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Brainstorming Logo Ideas

So while they're doing that, we're talking about next exercise, which is an icon matrix and um so you've got a just a real simple matrix in front of you, so we're going to do is pull out key words so you would use this either from the client or after going through this exercise and doing more words with keywords from the client, and you're gonna basically just plot words along both access is sometimes it's better to like group like mounds versus verbs, although I don't know that makes a huge difference um and you wouldn't have to use the matrix I mean, you could, you know, you could just do it in columns and kind of match things, my column, whatever what this does it like, then gives you like a physical space where these things intersect, um, to sketch out an idea of what that combination might be, um, I've so again, um, for this one, you know, that kind of the general subject words up here and then, um another another group here, but then these air sort of more like broad general, mor...

e general terms. And so then you know another thing you khun dio, is left list more specific words in other words, where we took a word, and then we build off that word uh you know you could do that here you could put the word that you started with and in the two or three related terms in there because, um you want to try and force yourself to come up with an idea of combining those but sometimes it just like you can't figure out a way to do that without it looked like frank, you know frankenstein or something so it's and then you know again you could probably have more words and you can initially plug into this so you can try ones that you didn't start out with um it's so what I'm going to do and what you should do is look through your list and then just sort of at it so what do you think that you know we'll probably lend themselves better toe visuals plug him into the icon and then, um you know, sketch just sketch out something that some some the ideas for based on the group of words that we've come up with the then the next step to kind of generate into an icon and so the people are watching at home right now I mean, you could easily create a matrix like this as well it's really just a a grid of paper and you can fill in each of these boxes as we go along and it's a it's a great way to add some extra information is you're going through this course don't say one of your words should probably be a dog or a dog that's a safe bet grab the mike if you have a question sorry, I'm not really sure about what we're supposed to be doing right now at the across the top and then in your first the first column we have along right pick words from the list that we generated um and so you probably want to like one one access should be college words, the other access should be dog words and then you come across on dso have a wrench and squad or if like put related words to squad like more specific uniform and insignia, so I'm going to say, can I come up with the icon combining those two ideas for your kind of words? Yeah, you're you're goingto use words from each of those what each of those lists that we came up with, our examples that we came up with on dh likes that one on one access. So the paladin one access dog words just edit those tow you probably added in the things that you think I'm going to lend themselves to better visuals in the first place and then you're gonna try and force yourself where they intersect to see if if you can generate a concert and icon assembled that combines those two ideas for you that's like a train that's like a training like it's like a training school we're calling out a dog university all right, so we have our students working on it at home any other questions from you guys as you go through this so you thinking hard noises wasn't working for you all right? And tim as you go through this anything that comes to your mind as you walk through the matrix what do you thinking about as you fill that out you know, just time looking at things that will lend themselves and probably like simpler things they're going to be easier to combine with other ideas yeah as you're writing to him uh you want to just verbalize exactly which you're you're putting on there because we've got the camera over there so we can kind of get a shot of it um I'm actually kind of doubling up in some there is some some columns um but it's going throwing editing again things that I think we'll lend themselves to being combined with other ideas or simple to just as you're going through this if you want to just uh read out towards you right? It just so I can follow along I'd be great so in the first column and doing a college across the top I've got I'm doing the prophet icons so like I've got bow tie and glasses um the next one I've got books or pennant um probably since we'll add megaphone um diploma cap and gown I'm kind of doubling up so that I can choose choose between good monogram letters and then institutional building and get I'm gonna get all the words from dog, but I think I'll be okay this process I know it's not easy to do something like this for the first time. It's one thing to brainstorm, but when you actually try to put it into the grid, it's sort of using a different part of your brain, right? Yeah, and it's, like you're not going to, you know, if you come away with, like, three or four, they're doing exactly what you're doing. Good, but if you know nothing comes to mind, skip it, go the next one and come back in comeback thing, is that you, andi, you might be going through this and then remember a list that you didn't include in the in your matrix. That would be a good fit with something that you're looking out from one of the categories. All right, so I'm going to mordor. Question over there. Go ahead, canine think this are you, including the name of the company that you're working with. Are you doing just idea sketches? Um, not unless it's like a descriptive, maybe, if it's a descriptive name like plumbing or something like that or like or electric you know, like if it's electrical there's a hole but you know there's a whole bunch of imagery that goes with with you know I can generate a list of keywords associated with like you know, electric or electricity no name no because that's more of actually like doing next things we're gonna do is like looking at type faces and trying to convey that character in a type and a typeface this is this is exercise is really for trying to come up with and icon or assemble or like a visual metaphor to company the name there's some some you know, identifying mark that we can come up with that people can get you know, just from seeing the the icon of the mark they can get what you know what type of what type of business or what type of organization it is some putting dogface and then cilla what so like a side side view of just the shape of the dog you mentioned that you move on if you get stuck on something like how long would something like this typically take you? Well um that's that's the other thing is that I kind of like fast late between doing this and doing sketches and then you know if there's time sort of revisiting things because like in any inn around andi actually want then once you start to get to this sketch stage you know there's always something that happens like a part of design is intuitive and so there's always some stuff that you don't really count on that happens during the during the process again it just depends on how good I feel about idea wise and how many how many concept actually have toe I'm actually required to generate if you only need to generate one or two concepts that it could be a pretty quick process than right if you come across one that you really like yep and usually like there'll be one like one one or two words that worked really well with that you know worked really well with other words from the category that you can use multiple times in combination mike oh god um how many aspects are we attempting teo um integrate um we're just trying to to take aspects that that work well in visual form that's what we're trying to find so is there an optimal number? Um I would say it's like for for like low concepts you should probably always count on doing it a minimum of three and you know and again one of those might might focus more on the training aspect um then you know then the bad behavior what or whatever the other you know considerations are all right the icon matrix already some thumbnail sketches another consideration I might have made sense to put this before the last exercise but um using rhetorical devices and generating icons and symbols um and I don't want to sing a few and I think there's about a dozen that I've seen used for this purpose s o obviously metaphors personification uh select a key on autonomy I'll show an example of each one of these metaphor is using different ideas or objects to convey either similar or related meaning um so this is one of our actually one of our words when we're going through the exercise of word mapping so glasses are a metaphor for a couple different things when you see glasses what do you think? Just something like this what comes to mind vision yet like so like for it opthamologist or an eye doctor's logo you know, one times and glasses an icon for that good or on also like I said, like education and intelligent you know, intelligence reading um sometimes so if you know if I put a crescent moon up there he would think of nighttime right uh personification and I've actually shown one of my logos for this it's basically where you give animate objects human qualities um and it's in this case it's actually this is for educational hyeon it's the letter e where actually has hands make up a stroke of negative space of the character um select a key is just using part of an object to represent the hole so you you know you don't need to see the whole thing to be able to recognize what it is so if I show you a pair of fangs well it's only have half a pair but yeah you know like you think vampire right um so you see a shark fan obviously you know that's an easy read so where it's the of these things that part of it is so strong that you only need to show that part so definitely trying to you know, one of the goals is to be communicate is simple you know simply as possible um that's a good you know that's a good way to do it without having to you know show the whole thing and then my autonomy which is using an object that is commonly referred to another subject so it's it's so it's an object or this is used in little literary literary devices but you can use them for visuals as well. So if you see a crown you immediately think what kangar like king or queen all right, so could you define that order to getting please autonomy? It's basically is an object that people associate very strong that was something else with another subject just to clarify that differs from a metaphor and that it's a visual representation or um it's something it's like more more strongly connected with like one with one thing it's clear right and has a more visceral reaction