Corcoran Studio: Information About the Lowell Guitars Logo and Branding Design Project

Goal of the Project

For the WGD 205 Advanced Design and Rapid Visualization course at DeVry University in 2017, students were tasked with creating a creative brief and several brand identity graphic design pieces for a fictional business. I chose to create a logo, a Grand Opening email blast and a print magazine advertisement for a fictional guitar retail store called “Lowell Guitars”. The audience for these designs was determined to be guitarists and aspiring guitarist of all age ranges, primarily young adults through a more experienced guitarist.

Project Specs

Category

• Branding
• Logo Design
• Page Layout

Software Used

Audience

• Beginner Guitarists
• Intermediate Guitarists
• Experienced Guitarists

Company Style Guide

A quick one page reference for the company logo, colors, typefaces, and information.

Lowell Guitars Company Style Guide (PDF)

Business Collateral Design

In addition to the designs displayed above a business card and letterhead design was created for this business. Using the Company Branding Guide, the logo, colors, typeface were all kept consistent with other business designs.

Business Card and Letterhead Design

Solution to the Problem

These three pieces demonstrate my ability to think creatively and rapidly about a design problem facing most new businesses, differentiating themselves from competitors through unique branding, logo design and digital and print collateral. The logo was designed first and came about as a result of carefully analyzing actual guitar retail competitors. After looking at colors, fonts, shapes, etc. of many major competitor’s logos in this space, I decided on the maroon and gold color for a simple two-color logo. The font used is also bold and easy to read. The guitar shape was chosen after many iterations of sketches of various logotype treatments and guitar shapes. This design is dissimilar to any of the other major guitar retail logos I found during the research, which makes it unique in this space. The initial logo was critiqued by several classmates and refined based on feedback received into the final version shown here. The logo design process took approximately 10 days to finish. Following that, the email blast and print magazine advertisement were designed in subsequent weeks. Those designs carry forward the colors, fonts and overall feel of the logo design while retaining their own creative flair. These designs were all created using Adobe Illustrator CC and Adobe Photoshop CC. The final print ad layout was performed using Adobe InDesign CC.

Feedback From Others

"Tom, excellent job on your logo! You did a nice job coming up with a simple, yet unique idea which suits your company very well. The logo is self-contained and even when the text is small, it is still very clear what the overall design is. Keep up the great work!"

- Jennifer Silverman, DeVry University Instructor (11/2017)

"I really enjoy the colour selections you made for this logo. It's rather unique while still being complimentary. I can imagine this logo being easily recognizable. Also, creative idea having the guitar pick in the background of the logo to add depth and fill in space. I can't see anything wrong with this design unfortunately (or not). Always splendid work!"

- Camerra Jackson, DeVry University Student (11/2017)

"This email blast looks really well put together. The color and the guitars remind me of a country themed kind of place just from what I think from the colors. I also see what you went by adding guitar themed things throughout the email blast. Making the arrows look like guitar picks adds to the overall theme of it. The overall use of the curly font for text also makes it look a little bit more fancier also. The smallest detail helps the overall aspect of this design."

- Donovan Vath, DeVry University Student (11/2017)

"Thomas, this is GREAT. You always have the best projects. The details and so timely about the black Friday sale is awesome. I like that on the bottom part of the ad you have a guitar outline to separate the gold and red. I have no critiques, this is great!"

- Dakari Davis, DeVry University Student (11/2017)