Wednesday, April 21, 2010

MantaRay

Here's a logo I was working on at work that is apparently not going to continue.
I was happy with the direction and had a lot of fun trying to show some form and character in a pretty flat creature, but had to take some liberties with the anatomy : )

Originally sketched on Cintiq and finalized in Illustrator.

9 comments:

  1. Oliver, that is one bad-ass logo! Love it!

    Can you elaborate as to why you were asked to stop work on it?

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  2. It really is a nice, dynamic logo. The text works very well with the illustrative ray. I'm with Daryll - I'd like to know more about it.

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  3. I'm with Daryll, this is exceptional —type as well as character. It's a shame he's been deep-sixed.

    Oliver, If it makes you feel any better, I have file boxes full of sketches of abandoned character logos. For some reason, these types of projects always cause me the most heartbreak. I'm always suggesting we have art-themed lunches; "aborted characters" would make a great one.
    Keep on!

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  4. Thanks for the kind words. It was for a swim team and was deemed "too aggressive" and the project didn't allow for revisions, so I believe its just been dropped. I like it though. I thought typography was strong enough to stand alone if necessary, but was happy with the way the ray and it's tail connected to the whole piece. I thought it was starting to balance out alright.

    But like you said Chuck, you can't win em all, and I'd love to see other abandoned characters. Throw em on up here!

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  5. Yeah, you wouldn't want a too aggressive logo/mascot for a sports team. What a sad, sad state we are in as a culture today.

    I can almost hear the possible suggestions to make it more palatable... "Can we make the stingray smiling? And have him looking at us giving a thumbs-up as if he's saying, we are all #1."

    If someone twenty years ago said a sports logo was too aggressive, they would have been laughed out of town!

    Oh, I've got abandoned characters.. and characters that were changed for the worse. If I get ambitious and feel like digging through the archives, I'll post 'em.

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  6. Yeah the tail is deftly handled. Having the break was a good call.
    I don't think it's overly aggressive, but if this is used for young kids/girls, I can see where they might prefer something sweeter. If I were the client, I'd definitely pony up a bit more cash and have something to use at the end of the day.

    I'll have to bring my character art to an upcoming lunch (maybe next time we go to Silver Spring House) I have to be careful posting stuff from "troubled" projects, but I'm sure I can dig up something.

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  7. Nicely done. I hope people post these rejected characters they are describing :)

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  8. Very nice, Oliver. Very clean and clear. I really enjoy the exaggeration in the anatomy. You've captured a great sense of movement.

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  9. I think it's pretty darn fabulous. Too aggressive? Man i wish some of the teams i've played on way back when had cool aggressive logos like that. Oh well, at least it's a great portfolio piece :-)

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