Greetings How does a good logo differ from a bad one? About one thousand articles were written about this, hundreds of rebranding were analyzed and there is even a whole business lynch. We are creating a platform for developers, so our logo should be easily recognized at conferences, adequately integrated into articles and educational materials, fit well with the general concept of a cloud telephony platform. I really like the GitHub logo: a nice cross between an octopus and a cat appeals to developers, while the logo can be easily modified for different tasks. If possible, I try to borrow good decisions: to create our logo, I decided to figure out what else, besides the cat, you can cross an octopus. Under the cut - the history of the development of the new VoxImplant logo, from concept verification to roll-up stands and stickers on laptops.

Why would I cross an octopus?

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We immediately decided that we will cross with animals. First of all, GitHub did it perfectly. Secondly, domestic animals traditionally evoke positive emotions, which ideally corresponds to our very wide audience. The selected animal should at least theoretically be combined with the octopus (the elephant probably will not work), be minimally cute (drop fish is not our choice either) and somehow be associated with our area of ​​activity - cloud voice telephony.

The key word “cloudy” sharply narrowed the range of available animals to birds, “voice” to parrots. Google Images on the keyword “octoparrot” showed a theoretical possibility of crossing.

How to cross?

Octocat is butt-crossed and is rather schematic. The authors play on the hand that both animals are covered with skin. The situation with birds is more difficult because of their feathering, so crossing over butt will look unnatural or at least weird. The search for bald birds and feather-covered tentacles showed that I have a rich imagination, but this is of little use.

The name of the brand VoxImplant came to the rescue, the second part of which seemed to hint that the tentacles might not be very native. Knowing now which way to dig, my imagination quickly portrayed a gallery of little animals with metal tentacles growing from unexpected places, plus sharing creatively refined shots from Transformers and remembered from childhood Chip and Dale. The preliminary idea was finally formed: on the logo will be a parrot with mechanical tentacles.

And who will draw all this?

A common mistake in delegation is the choice of the contractor, who is generally a master of his craft, but is not suitable for this particular job. There is an opinion that a “tyzhprogrammist” can develop anything from a website and ending with firmware to a microwave, and a “tyzhhudozhnik” can draw anything. The harsh truth of life lies in the fact that a good artist, who has been making illustrations for historical novels for the last few years, will not be able to beautifully paint the logo of a parrot with metal tentacles.

It is necessary to look for an artist who already has extensive experience in drawing in the desired area. Logos, comic style, little animals - a good reason to look at DeviantArt, one of the world's largest platforms, where artists showcase their work and are ready to grind a little. Plus, I had an interesting variant for the birds: remember these guys who regularly publish their adventures on Habré in the field of developing a multiplayer browser game about birds? Not to say that the creation of logos is their main profile, but given the ready-made base of illustrations, which I was completely satisfied with, I decided to discuss with the guys the possibility of cooperation on mutually beneficial terms.

How sketches were drawn

How to start working with an artist? From the description in your own words, what exactly needs to be done, and the accuracy of the description determines the speed at which the performer understands the needs of the customer: for a large number of details, the artist will always say thank you and will try to take them into account at the first sketches.



In response, the artist prepares a certain number of sketches as part of his experience and understanding of the task, and the sketches are created in such a way that you can immediately show variations on different elements (object position, size, contrast) and combine the parts of the illustration from the proposed options when the customer and the performer already see the possible result. A few days later I received this set of sketches:



It is important to understand that the sketching process is iterative, from the first time few people manage to “catch” the customer's vision. Having received the first options, you need not to panic, but clearly articulate what you like and what does not. Selecting the first and fourth sketches, I sent the next pack of comments.



Pretty quickly, the artist collected a hybrid image:



You can already look at it without fear :). But the options are still far from my inner ideal. In order for the lower “implant part to look organic”, it must be well inscribed in the bird. How to explain this to the artist?

Wings, legs ... The main thing - the beak! And tentacles

The artist quickly made another sketch again - many years of experience in drawing anthropomorphic birds for an online game. The bonus is a parrot without tentacles, so that I can estimate the diameter of the sirloin:



Already seems to be true. Little things remained: the head of the parrot must clearly show that it is a parrot, and the tentacles must be made more beautiful.



New sketches, look already much nicer:



I choose the option I like and give the go-ahead for drawing.

File completion

All that came before this was draft sketches. After one of them was approved, the artist began to draw. Initially, the vector contour was made:



Then we discussed and approved the fill colors, and the artist draws the details:



And finally, the finished vector version:

Organizational Conclusions

A month ago, a new logo was baptized at AngelHack. Developers, as I expected, liked :).

Summarizing this story, I would like to note that when creating a logo, and any illustrations, there are two important stages. First, you need to find the right artist, based on his previous works. Option "well, they are the pros, draw what we say," rolls are not always. Secondly, many iterations are required. And it is highly desirable that one person take strictly your decision. You can consult with any number of people, but only the person making the decision should have a vision of what he wants to get in the end. Otherwise, the stage of coordination and revisions can turn into an exciting game “spoiled phone” several months long :).