Not so long ago we had the pleasure to work together with the mighty Andy Clarke from Stuff and Nonsense. He was working on a site called “Stay in Wales”  and his client needed a logo for this project.

Visit France

Andy’s client liked the logo very much so we had the pleasure to design another logo for a similar project called “Visit France“, a site that is specialized in finding accommodation in France.

Thinking process

As you have noticed, both sites use the same design, and so it was very clear from the start that this logo should use the same design style and typography. We’ve used Keedy Sans in combination with a slightly modified version of Suburban (both by Emigre).

In this particular situation we didn’t have to consider a black & white, or grayscale version for the creation this logo. This gave us more design freedom to work with. So we approached the same thinking path of a rather illustrative logo, just like we did for Stay in Wales.

Proposal 1

Logo design proposal: using the typical French beret in combination with the French flag.

First thing that comes to mind for the creation of this logo is obviously the French flag. Using the flag in the logo was also requested by the client and so that got us thinking of combining the flag with something typical French. One of the symbols we thought of was a beret. Another idea was to use the Eiffel tower. Although the Eiffel tower makes me think of Paris, the city, instead of France as a country. After giving that some thought we decided to pursuit the idea of a beret hat instead.

Proposal 2

Logo design proposal: applying the colors of the French flag on a simple abstract shape

What bothered me a bit in the previous proposal was that the illustration style was a bit too cartoony. We also tried something totally different and experimental: applying the colors of the French flag on a simple abstract shape. We wanted to see if this would work, but it didn’t feel strong enough in the end compared to a simple flag.

Proposal 3

The proposal that did work however, was one using a brush stroke with the French flag applied to it.

Logo design proposal: using a brush stroke.

This proposal was getting in the right direction, but wasn’t ‘there yet‘. The client felt we should give it a more typical flag shape, and we agreed. Even though we tried to come up with something different, we couldn’t get around the fact that a typical flag shape was the right option. It would give the logo a more interesting shape, and it would definitely make the logo more recognizable. The link with France would be obvious and the brush line would add some uniqueness.

Process of how to use a brush stroke in with the French flag applied to it.

First try on the left and second and final try on the right

Final & approved design proposal

I played around with the brush shape and went back to the initial shape of it. Using the starting of the brush stroke for the blue part of the flag, and the ending of the stroke for the red part of the flag. I tweaked the ending lines and structure of the stroke for the red part a lot, as it seemed to have lost some balance once I applied it to the flag.

Then lastly, the curly shape that is used for the white part of the flag is added using the Pen tool. To finish things off and to give the flag some depth and realistic feel, we applied subtle gradients to each part of the flag. I’ll follow this up with a tutorial that reveals more details about the creation of this logo.

What we did

Brand design and consulting

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