Client: We are running the Level One educational project: levelvan.ru/courses. It offers offline lectures and short courses that help get an understanding of different areas of culture and science: art, architecture, history, astronomy, etc. We take broad topics, filter out the essentials, carefully prepare the materials and then present them multiple times in front of different audiences. We give lectures in cultural spaces across Moscow to make sure people not only get new knowledge but also get to see new places. We’ve been doing this for a year and a half.
The lectures are designed for a wide audience. Everything is geared towards people who want to quickly get an understanding of an area, not towards professionals.
We want the logo to emphasize two components of what we offer: the result and the time well spent. It means the logo needs to be both dynamic and elegant. Our primary audience are women aged 25–45, but men need to like the style too. The current logo exists on its own, but we need to be able to use the corporate identity in a variety of situations including the design of lecture slides, interior of spaces and additional materials, etc.
Preferences for the identity:
1. Our name is Level One, while the website is at levelvan.ru, so please don’t experiment with “Level 1.”
2. So far we’ve been actively relying on the color yellow, so we would prefer to keep using a shade of it.
3. We are using lots of pictures in our announcements so it’s important to make sure the identity can be combined with pictures of various colors and that it isn’t too niche, for example too Avant-garde or dry and corporate.
4. Our lecturers are renowned experts that deliver basic facts in a fun way so it’s important that the style isn’t elitist or snobbish but at the same time isn’t too primitive or over-simplifying. After all, all of our topics are quite complex.
Starting to work.
Art director: Numbers 10 and 12 are OK but not cool enough to make it in the list of the best logos of 2017.
Art director: No.
Designer: References to Mario and bosses in video games. New knowledge is like a new boss.
Art director: No.
Art director: 13 is great. The rest looks recycled (Next, etc.). Work on 13.
Designer: I like number 1, what do you think?
Art director: 1 is OK. Just change the colors, otherwise it reminds of the Ridus logo.
Designer: I’ve adjusted the colors keeping in mind how the logo will be used. It seems to resemble Ridus only when it’s orange and there are gradients, otherwise it should be OK.
Art director: Get rid of yellow. 9 is OK.
Designer: But the client asks for yellow. Do you mean 9 is OK in terms of colors?
Art director: Get rid of yellow.
Designer: What about number 9?
Art director: Let’s develop it, what else.
Designer: Updated the shape, usage examples and colors. I also tried black (numbers 8 and 9) but just it doesn’t look right.
Art director: The shape in 1 is OK. Now let’s choose the colors.
Designer: For example, like this. What’s the direction here? Volume with shading, a gradient, no shadows?
Art director: 8 with no gradients.
Designer: Shade matrix. Once we make a choice, I’ll adjust the shadows.
Art director: Go with the very first one, the rest look like France.
Designer: Now the text. Pick the position.
Art director: 3 is OK but the L should be visible.
Art director: Everything looks good. Now choose two different colors.
Designer: Done.
Art director: Choose other colors.
Designer: Juicier.
Art director: Ukraine and France. No go.
Art director: Go with number 6.
Designer: Variations around 6.
Art director: 5.
