The making of the logo and corporate identity for Avangard Ukrainian basketball club

Searching for inspiration in pictures and logos of foreign counterparts.

Drawing a bunch of sketches and demonstrating to the art director.

Art director: The lightning with inscription and fire wings can be developed further. The one with the arrow is OK, the one with letter Ж—not so much. And the one with the flag looks like a toucan’s beak.

Developing the chosen concepts and checking out how they would look on real media.

Art director: The last two are passable.

Meanwhile new ideas come pouring in. What if we use Varangian symbols? Seagulls, sails, Drekars, all that.

Art director: We can work on the middle one at the bottom.

We suddenly come by two more alternatives: a belligerent and a minimalistic one.

How about we make use of the Cossack theme with sabres?

Art director: No. The one with swords is plain Saudi Arabia, and the one with the cobweb—just no.

How about an ax-ball?

Art director: Could be.

OK. Time to stop with the new ideas.

Putting all the concepts together, looking for the best styling.

Assembling the pictures into a presentation and demonstrating them as an overall direction.

Client: The ax is not Cossack at all, it’s more like a Viking one. As for the one with the lightning, it would be best to give the ball less volume and add more aggression.

Making the changes, creating a number of variants for different media.

Client: No, I don’t like the ax, but let’s see where we can get with the letter A!

Considering the shapes of the letter and of the lightning.

Art director: Nope, still looks horrible. Keep on looking.

Getting valuable advice from the secret adviser, correcting the shapes and working on the typeface.

Examining the media.

Looking at what we came to. Finalizing the logo alternatives for various media sizes, the typefaces and the digits. Getting the client’s approval.

Preparing the material for the brand book.

Typesetting.