The making of logo and visual identity for Moscow Hermitage Garden

Starting with the logo and lettering

No luck so far, continuing on with the search.

There is something special about this.

Yes, let’s do the lettering now.

Getting the feel for it.

The illustrator does the main logo in the typical Art Deco style—complete with water lilies.

Putting it all together and showing to the client.

The customer like it but requests that flowers be changed to roses.

Taking out the water lilies and peonies, and adding roses instead.

Peonies rule.

Making logos for park activities; skating rink, playground, cafés, restaurants, weddings, concerts, festivals, theater, cinema.

Selecting colors.

The art director wants to replace the bear on the cinema logo with a lion.

It takes several tries before the illustrator gets it right.

The client asks to do the ice rink with skates. We follow up with two versions—one focused on just the skates and one showing a skating couple.

Looking for the right pose, doing research on skating pros and amateurs.

The close up version is easier on the eyes, so we are deciding to go with it.

Doing black & white versions of all the logos.

The customer insists on redoing the café & restaurant logo in such a way that it matches the spirit of the garden café.

Art director: The one with two cups is ok, but that “band of brottles” is bothering me. Draw the lampshade slightly bigger, perhaps, and move the bottles to the background.

Art director: Lampshade slightly bigger and that’s it.

Working on the vector version, trying different color schemes.

The customer picks the second one. We clean it up, and off to the brand book it goes.

The logos are finished. Starting to work on stationery.

On our first approach, determining the style and form of business cards.

Letterhead.

Selecting the best ones and showing them to the art director.

Typesetter: Does this look ready?

Арт-директор: Looks weak.

Ok, putting it on hold for now. Starting to work on posters.

Going to the park, taking pictures of everything we see there.

Doing the posters.

Redoing the poster again from scratch and making a frame to display local and other posters.

Testing it.

Excellent template for a future presentation!

Thinking further.

And further.

None of it works. A designer comes up with a new concept.

Doing more work based on the new idea. Developing two stylistic directions.

Now working on the signs. Coming up with ideas.

Stop. Clarifying the task again and starting over.

Typesetter: Acrylic information signs in front of statues. There are flower beds around every statue. We can stick the signs directly into the flower beds. This is just a sketch, we’ll ask Lisa to draw nicer-looking flowers. The idea is to have different color signs to look like different flowers.

Art director: Not bad.

The illustrator does the signs, the typesetter works on lettering.

Typesetter: Good?

Art director: What about left edge alignment? What about putting radio station’s name quotation marks? And what’s up with those spaces?

Correcting.

Making sign prototypes, then going to the garden to try them out.

Determining the way that signs are going to be installed, while preparing the brand book.