portfolio & design blog of logo & identity designer, Graham Smith

This is my latest project and is quickly becoming a favourite. Need to stress these are the first round of preliminarily ideas to be thrashed out so it is most assuredly early-days. There is, however, always a chance that the final design may end up being almost identical to the one above, but this ultimately comes down to the client.
A little background
This logo design project is a brand update for a t-shirt company which was originally designed around a retro style locomotive; the brand name “T-Shirt Express” is linked to the train version of “express” rather than pizza express!
My advice to the client was to keep the idea of a train but “improve” the aesthetics as I felt the original idea was solid. No need to re-invent the wheel, so-to-speak.
We discussed trains at length which gave us both a pretty good idea of the direction to take. The client liked the idea of using a “cow catcher” and/or “track” as well as giving me a list of styles of trains through out the decades.
I have settled on three initial variations of the core idea which starts with the full ingredient version based on a mash-up of train styles, including: traditional steam locomotive, art-deco inspired and the heavy industrial Russian style etc.
The wording plaque is formed from the shape of a track sleeper, and the typeface is GarageGothic Bold.
Pretty excited about how this project has started so more news will inevitable be forthcoming over the next few weeks.
The following t-shirt image was sourced from http://psdgraphics.com



Categories: Client Work, Logo Process, Portfolio
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Really like the bottom t-shirt design. Effective in its simplicity but at the same time I immediately see the train reference.
Like all of them but the top one really speaks to me. The train looks powerful strong and fast and even safe.
Definitely the first design; the two halves of the train are perfectly balanced with rectangle containing the text. While the last design gives the impression of a train, it feels there’s just that little something missing. However, they are all great.