Design for Application

I’m applying to a company called Strawberry, a design company. I spontaneously decided that, as someone with little experience and an incredibly small portfolio, I’d actually make a couple pieces specifically for them, to try and wow them (I really want this job, and I have the time to waste and need the practice anyway). This is the first one I made:

Did another version (slightly different – just made a custom scatter brush in illustrator to make a bit of a textured background)
Which do you guys prefer?
[edit] oops, uploaded bad version
[edit2] think this one works:

I like it without the yellow noise.

Today’s logos are all clean and simple.

The first graphic is better. The second looks like a Christmas message (Script font and snowflakes = Christmas) :laughing:

If you want to impress the company, forget about what YOU like and try to reflect the company’s personality with your logo. Why did the company call themselves ‘Strawberry’? You should do some research, but it maybe because they like the images a strawberry conjures up – e.g fresh, sweet, tangy, crisp, juicy, bright, pink, sunshine, spring etc. You’re graphic should feel fresh, light, pretty, watery and/or sweet.

I like you’re attempt at quirkiness but this doesn’t work, imo. I don’t ‘get’ the name ‘straw berry’ written in beans and there’s too much happening with the different fonts and gimmicks.

The strawberry symbol should tie the pink and blue together but it ends up looking like a superman logo. I also don’t get the spacing. It’s awful. :slight_smile: Sorry, but it is. Why have the heavy looking ‘strawberry’ pushed up top and have big gaps below? There’s no balance; it just looks amateurish.

Why don’t you draw a graphic floating in white space rather than filing in the whole box? Boxes are heavy; I think a light, floating graphic would work better.

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taking all comments into consideration.
will add a white-spacey design soon

:smiley:

You’ve got a creative knack. Your “FJ” logo works really well and I like the other design you did – particularly the way the clouds and the dots looked like an off-register print.

Good luck with the application.

Um, aren’t they strawberries seeds?

beans

lawl.

It’s not exactly “white-space” – it’s grey-space. Hope that’s close enough. Here’s my more minimal, geometric design:

illustrator is sometimes bad with jpeg artifact :frowning:

I like this last one more.

The last one is interesting, but it still doesn’t work for me; still too many competing/clashing parts.

This how I see it:
The curved leaf graphic feels organic, lotus flower-like (even though heavily stylised)
The strawberry shape feels mechanical, abstract and hard
The italicised, serif font looks like something I’d see on a 1950’s Milk Shake bar window.

So you have 1) organic mixed with mechanical (curved/squared), 2) contemporary stylised graphics with old-fashioned font and 3) colours that don’t link the three elements together. You can mix and match conflicting shapes, multiple colours, clashing styles together but they should be linked by something.

I do this for a living (and hire graphic artists from time to time, too) and I find it fascinating to see how people think by how they design. For me, this is at the heart of philosophy: what we think about is determined by our language. Those who control the language/symbols, control how we think.

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Do you have an online portfolio?

As for the font, perhaps I’ll try a more geometric one. I might also do a rendition of the leaves more angled and straight.
(although, to be completely fair to myself, that font is pretty modern. Created in the 90s. I think it works quite well, but I will try a more geometric one at your suggestion)
(and, I think having straight-edged leaves might be a bit too monotonous, but will try it for fun anyway.)

Yes, but I’m not going to post it here :laughing: I treasure my anonymity and it will stay that way. :sunglasses:

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I don’t want you to agree with me. I just want you to see it as I (a potential client) sees it. Once you see what I’m saying, use it or discard it – but just be aware of it.

In the end, It’s only art. There’s no right or wrong. At this level, it’s only fashion.

You could leave everything as it is and just put a tinge of pink in the grey font (just the slightest touch) to link the font with the graphic. I’d also play around with making the green less ‘in your face’. It could be a light grey with a little green in it? ? ? This way, grey becomes the subtle linking feature.

(Gotta go do my own work now… )