I’m a big fan of the blog Brand New. I like seeing the “before and after” of various brand identities.
Lately I’ve been contemplating a brand refresh of my own. I’ve been mostly satisfied with the current Room 34 Creative Services logo. I really like the “rings” design element, the color palette, and, even though it’s overused, the Avenir font:
But there are some things I don’t like about the logo. I’ve been getting a little tired of the colors (even though I like them); I’m increasingly regretting including the “.com” (even though I like the fact that my logo is my web address); and I don’t like the redundant “Room 34.” Plus, Avenir is overused.
So, today I took a first stab at a new identity. It has a new color palette, using one of my favorite colors, reddish-orange (or vermillion if you prefer a more poetic name for it), it eliminates the redundant text, and it switches to another of my favorite, but much less common, fonts: Proxima Nova:
I’m not 100% committed to this change yet; rebranding is a big undertaking, even for a business as small as mine. Switching to this new logo will require redesigning my website, my letterhead and my business cards. But I like the direction. I especially like the letterforms (or, I guess, numeralforms) of the “3” and “4” in Proxima Nova Black. So nice. The new logo is also more compact and scales down better than the old.
Update: Based on JW’s excellent recommendations (and a few observations of my own) I’ve made a few adjustments: 1) improved spacing between the “o’s” in “room”; 2) resized the rings slightly for better lockup with the text — the top of the “4” ring group is now aligned with the top of the letters in “room”; 3) slight change to the color in “CREATIVE SERVICES” so it is more readable on either a light or dark background.
Here’s the new version, on both white and black:
Comments
3 responses to “Brand New: Room 34 Edition”
I’d like to see you play with this new one a bit, specifically where white space is concerned. It feels a bit cramped with the bolder type and color… it feels especially tight between the “o’s” in “room”.
As for the rings, I’m not entirely sure what they’re telling me about the company. You wear many hats… perhaps it would behoove you to design a modular brand that incorporates those rings,
Lastly, don’t be afraid to outline that font in illustrator and pull some points around… it would be cool if you modified it just enough for it to be yours.
You knew I was fishing for feedback from you, didn’t you?
Thanks for the suggestions. I did a little manual adjustment of the letter spacing but I was focused more on the space between the “o” and the “m” than between the two “o’s”.
I like the modular idea. I was actually thinking about doing something with that already, but this was kind of a quick first attempt at a generic “master” logo. Another thing I’m considering is replacing the “o’s” with perfect circles, and using perfect circles for the rings. Right now the rings are actually uppercase “O’s” from Proxima Nova Extra Bold. (I think they’re extra bold. Maybe bold.) But I was also thinking of maybe ditching the rings and replacing them with an assortment of different graphical elements, either producing a series of sub-logos (where “CREATIVE SERVICES” is also replaced with some relevant subset of what I do).
The one thing you mention that hadn’t even crossed my mind was altering the letterforms, but now that you’ve suggested it, I may just have to do it.
Also… I just noticed when comparing the two logos how similar the regular weights of Avenir and Proxima Nova are. But the heavier weights are much different.
Lovin’ it! Strictly speaking, it’s not really Dutch because it’s not really blue and it’s not really orange, but I love it anyway!
Nice update to an already great identity.