Background
I was reached out by a friend of a previous client to design their logo and brand for a cardiovascular practice. Overall, they gave me free reign to experiment with the look of the name "Mehta" and wanted "heart"-related elements portrayed.
Opportunity
This was one of my quickest turn-around branding projects because my client was scaling and building infrastructure at a rapid pace. Based in California, I had a good opportunity to branch out further into a state I was familiar with working in.
Timeline
1 Month, January 2016
Discovery
Initial Direction
My client had some good ideas from the start. Work with the "Mehta" letters and form a heart-like shape. Just from this, I listed out some aspects to explore:
- Cursive, fluid, and movement
- Stark red and black, contrasting
- Heart shape with a letter
- EKG lines
Examples and Insight
My client also sent me some logo examples to review and draw inspiration from. The ones that seemed strongest to me had the ability to shape a specific letter into a heart-shaped object.
Inspiration and Definition
Research and Themes
With this start, I did a deep dive into the medical and cardiovascular world. Learning a lot about this particular sector of medicine from other rebranding efforts and articles, I put together a couple of themes:
- Caring: Empathetic, soft, warm, hospitable, gentle
- Life: Pulse, movement, dynamic, flowing, continuous
Building Blocks
Using themes to drive design language decisions, I broke it down into building blocks:
- Color palette: Bright red, steel grey, black
- Shapes: Circular, rounded
- Typography: Cursive, hand-written coupled with a sans-serif descriptor
Logo and Mark Sketches
Ideas
Brand and design direction led to sketching and prototyping the logo and mark variations. I decided to divide my work into two camps:
- "Heart"-shaped, "M" aspect
- EKG symbolism
Sketches and Digital Versions
I sketched these ideas and worked with my client on refining their overall vision. We both agreed that shaping the "M" into a heart-shape was a great approach and captured my clients creative direction. After a few batch iterations, I chose a select few and digitized them in Illustrator.
Four version batches reviewed with client.
Finalizing and Delivery
Potential Candidates
With further iterations and refining, we narrowed it down to a couple candidates: two with the "M" heart-shape, and two with the EKG heart-shape.
Finalizing
After reviewing with their partners, my client agreed that the first "M" heart-shape logo was their favorite. With them satisfied, I packaged up all the various logo and mark source, social media, and print files and sent it to them.
The Outcome
With a logo and mark complete, I placed them on various mediums to see how well it scaled and portrayed.
