I’m designing a logo for a new company that will build plastic manufacturing machinery – a fairly small-sized low-tech industry where stability, solid engineering, and even country of manufacturer is of elevated importance.
The logo will go on a range of sizes: from small scale, like business cards, to logos imprinted on the machinery, to digital, to a sign on a building.
Features in order of importance:
- Giving a feeling of solid and well-engineered product
- Modern – yes, but not new, hip and startupy
- Canadian (red/white) but not in-your-face-Canadian. Not a deal breaker
Variations
This would go on business cards, official company correspondence:
This would go on signs, machinery:
This would be a standalone logo where otherwise the name of the company is known or implied by the context:
Questions:
1) Is the first square logo too “busy”? How can it be improved?
2) Does the wide logo read “RONOPLAST” and the first T is ignored? How can this be improved with hopefully retaining the red/white combination?
EDIT: I used an additional method to answer question (2) using 5-second-test on usabilityhub: 9/10 got the T; the 1 didn’t remember the entire name at all.
EDIT 2 – Final output
Thank you, everyone, for very useful suggestions. I wish I could mark more than 1 accepted answer. I implemented the following:
- Kerning
- Font change to Futura Bold (this is much better and it fixed the ugly
Rof Arial)- Made minor changes to letter
TandL- Placed
Tvertically centered to make it more symmetrical with the square.- Made the rest of the letters slightly smaller than
Tto make T stand out.- Changed black to 95% gray.
Some features of
Twere purposefully left slightly off symmetry/pattern – it makes it stand out.The outcome:
And the spacing:
Answer
I think the square in the first use is a little busy — I’d at least try how it looks without the cutout in the bottom right, or without the small square on the bottom right, or with neither, even if just to be sure that you prefer what you already have. (For consistency, you’ll have to change them all, of course.)
About the type, I think that bears more attention. I strongly recommend against Arial in all contexts, partly because it’s not a great font, partly because everyone has seen it everywhere, it makes things look generic. In this context I think you want something “solider” — Arial has more variation in stroke widths than you want, and particularly that diagonal on the R is not the look you want. I don’t have samples in front of me, but you might want to look at Futura bold (a little retro, but Futura is a gem), Gothic or Trade Gothic (probably not Franklin Gothic, too much weight variation in the strokes) or anything along those lines.
The weight variation in the capital T really shows up in the big square. Even if you choose a font which has that variation, I’d look into hand-tuning the T in the square so the horizontal and vertical of the T are the same width, and the same width as the space above the T.
Have you though about what happens if there’s an application where you need a black and white version?
All that said, it’s a lovely strong look. You may already be there, and if not you’re very close.
Attribution
Source : Link , Question Author : New Dev , Answer Author : eac2222
