Cafe Vienna - Logo final

After much deliberation and experimentation and development, here is the final logo using different colours from my selected colour palette.

As you can see i've brought through my inspiration from Roller's work with abstract decorative swirls and elongated letter forms, however my colour palette is reminiscent of the pastel colour pallets of the era however, the colours are a bit more vibrant.

Cafe Vienna - Logo

In my last post i said i preferred the Muffaroo typeface and since then i've been playing around with it to produce the logo (a few examples bellow)

As you can see i've been combining the logo with ornamental flourishes, i've also been applying the warp tool in small amounts to add to the hand rendered look. I preffer the layout with the V being bigger than the rest of the type, this could leave space for the cafe part of the logo. 

Contextual Studies - Red Bull Brand

My last post about contextual, was about the success of the Coca Cola Company, this week is comparative study of the success of the Red Bull brand,.

. Chaleo Yooovidhya, the self made Thai billionaire and founder of the T.C. Pharmaceuticals.
. Inspired by the drink that was sold in the mid 70's in Thailand to truck drivers and labourers, co founded a company with a Nigerian partner which was name Red Bull literal translation of the drink that inspired the company.
. An Austrian entrepreneur developed the brand and helped introduce the brand to the U.S in 1997

Since then Red Bull has became a brand that has become apart of fuelling active and extreme sports due to clever branding and sponsorships/events, for example most recently Red Bull are planning to help a man sky dive from the stratosphere.

Contextual studies - Coca Cola Brand

As a follow up to the previous post i had made about the contextual studies, this post shall be about todays presentation which is about evaluating the success of the coke cola brand using critical thinking.
Obviously the history of the coca cola company is an expansive one so forgive me if i skim through it.

. Formulated at the Eagle drug and chemical company, Columbus, Georgia. The formula was a coca wine, containing trace amounts of cocaine
. The founder John Pembleton, Morphine addict due to the injury sustained in the civil war

. 1886 Atlanta brought in a prohibition, so John Pembleton changed the formula to a non alcoholic elixir and in that same year advertised the coca drink as medicinal drink in the Atlanta Journal.
. Advertisement was also placed specifically in national magazines and train stations in order to take the brand national
. Due to a lack of a pattern or trademark early in it's production, coca cola produced much legal disruption amongst supposed share holders
. 1891 - First officially bottled with the icon lady shaped bottle
. 1935 - Coca cola officially declared Kosher, this meant that the brand was open to a new audience, the Jewish race.
. 1939/1945 - World War 2 was a period of destitude time throughout Europe, however the coca cola thrived. The company followed the allied forces and bought factories in Europe and in Germany, Fanta was founded due to the inability to source the coca cola syrup from Atlanta, so they used the only thing available which was orange and it was a commercial hit within Nazi Germany.
. 1950's - Coke became synonymous with the American lifestyle as it's branding and logo had changed very little

From this presentation i have learnt that design and branding works hand in hand with culture and cultural events wether it shapes a culture or it is shaped by culture.

Contextual studies - Lautrec

Last year we had a unit called contextual studies which is an essay based unit, my question last year was along the lines of "How is current technology effecting design and where do you, think based upon current breakthroughs, future technologies will take design".

This year we have to create our own questions, however i plan on creating a similar question, however this years is question is more specific in terms of design area i.e. typography, illustration etc.

Before i create my question, we are going to be given a few presentations, i missed the first presentation through illness, although it was the same essay writing presentation we had last year. The presentation i sat through today was about the "father" of graphic design, Taulouse Lautrec, he was one of the first to successfully combine type and illustration to convey a message.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (24 November 1864 – 9 September 1901) was a French painter, printmaker, draughtsman and illustrator whose immersion in the colourful and theatrical life of Paris in the late 1800s yielded a collection of exciting, elegant and provocative images of the modern and sometimes decadent life of those times. Toulouse-Lautrec, along with Cezanne, Van Gogh and Gaugain, are among the most well-known painters of the Post impressionist period. 

Although i don't have the original presentation, i do have link to another presentation which i subsequently watched afterward the original presentation. 

( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdZ1U9D0mFo ) Although the presentation comes from an art perspective.

These presentations/the works and techniques of Lautrec has inspired me to use different techniques to produce his works.

Vienna Cafe - Typefaces

Since i had research quite thoroughly, in my opinion, i know what i was looking for within a typeface. So i've began looking through different type websites such as dafont, i've came across a few typefaces which have similarities to those used in ver sacrum (Bellow).

Personally i am leaning more towards the typeface called Muffaroo (3rd from the bottom). Due to the lengthy ascenders and descenders as well the hand rendered look.

Vienna Cafe - Research - Modern Antiquity

Since i looked at work of well known artist of the time (late 19th century), i today began looking into the works of modern designers (works inspired by 19th century) to see how they produce similarities and yet still keep their design looking modern, in order to give me some ideas of how to recreate a similar appearance.

These are but a few pieces of work which inspired me (found on blogs such designspiration.com and ffffound.com), a few things i want to take away from looking at these pieces is the decorative flourishes and details which could surround/ be apart of the logo and the branding. Another trend i've noticed is that the designers are producing old style design but using more current colour palettes, which again i could use to give my design the modern feel which i want.

Vienna Cafe- Research - Ver Sacrum

Since i was looking into how modern designers were producing work that had a antique look, i thought i would look a little more into works of that era and then see the modern interpretations too see the differences and similarities.
I started by firstly looking at a movement known as the Vienna Secession and since i was searching for more typographical inspiration, i delved into the works the artists who created the Ver Sacrum magazines, such as Koloman Moser and Alfred Roller. (examples of both artists work bellow).

As you can see the letter forms are abstract imitations of letter forms and have elongated characteristics as well as a san serif appearance. As an observation they remind me slightly of the flamboyant type forms of the 70's psychadelia.

Alternative techniques- The brief

A member of the Hippo design studio came through to brief us, the brief is to rebrand a cafe and whose work they prefer, wins a four month internship, the brief is completely open from naming the cafe to branding etc.
So as soon as i was given the begun to research into current coffee shop trends and the history of cafes and coffee shops. One thing i found and one route i'd like to pursue is the Venetian coffee shop style of the 19th century, example bellow.

The thing i like about the venetian style is the decomposing grandeur and decorative manner of the 19th century, yet with a slight modernity to it. I also looked at artists of the time to influence my ideas and concept, for example the work of Henri Toullouse Lautrec, who many believe to be the founder of graphic design, examples of work bellow.

Through looking at his work, i can gain a gage on colour palettes and typefaces of favour in that era also his illustrative work is something to be admired too.

Phonica - development

Since i have an idea of which way i want to go ( the bottom idea on previous post) i thought i'd produce a net that would be laser cutter ready (Bellow).

Now that i have the platform, i need to start designing upon the packaging, although from looking at others work, i think i'll go the simplistic route here's a mock up (bellow).