How to make Mind Beery logo

I have recently completed a project working on a new logo for a company based in Vienna, Austria. I found this an interesting process to recount as the client had a name which suggested an obvious solution however this was not what the client wanted. I thought that it would be helpful for other designers who find themselves stuck on a certain solution and serve as interesting reading for the design community to show my creative process from start to finish.

The Creative Brief mindberry GmbH is a company based in Vienna, Austria who offers consulting and project management services to their clients. They have created the business in Austria with the view to expand to service UK, German and eventually US clients. They did not provide any limitations on the initial brief but did request that I produce a solution that would appeal to both the young/trendy audience and to the more conservative companies. I was approached by them to provide a logo comprising of a symbol which was simple with not too many colours or elements being used.

Drafting and Development Initially I looked at the name of the company, mindberry, and automatically was focused to create a logo using a berry shape or a berry made up of differing elements. Below you will find my initial sketches. You will see that I tried different alternatives to incorporate the initials ‘m’ and ‘b’ into the shape of a berry but this did not create a strong enough logo and looked incomplete.


I continued my brainstorming and research and found inspiration within a number of different berries and below you will see the initial concepts which were chosen and presented to the client.





The above sketches were presented together to show the range of berry shapes that could be applicable to the brand but the client felt that they were a bit limiting and did not appeal to their corporate audience. I therefore created the below design which was meant to again form a berry but with a different style which was more angular and calculated and had a little more corporate appeal. The use of darker colours in this version was to give appeal to both audiences.


The client was a little more impressed with this second concept but were interested to see if I could create a logo for them which did not involve a berry element as they felt it was still not conservative enough for the corporate side of their audience. This was difficult at first as the instant mental image you have is a berry when presented with a client with the name mindberry therefore I started again from scratch and started by thinking ‘What is a mindberry?‘
I decided that it was an abstract term for a thought or idea and so experimented with designing a symbol which captured the head and a thought bubble. Below you will see my initial hand sketches.




After deciding on the rough idea, I started to finalise the concept by first calculating the mathematical elements of the symbol, then re-drafting, tidying up and transferring my sketches to the Dot Grid Book. This is the perfect medium for geometric based design as its light geometric dot matrix serves as a subtle guide for sketches. Below you will see the initial dot grid image.



I now had the logo planned and was able to bring it into a digital medium. This dot grid image was scanned into the computer, as below, in order for me to alter and achieve the final touches using the software.
Using Adobe Illustrator, I was able to rapidly recreate the layout in mathematical harmony. This is of course a lot faster process when the initial designs have been plotted on paper therefore I would again stress that hand sketching is an essential part to any design, as you are able to gain an idea of the final aim prior to utilising software to reach it.


Delivery and feedback After presentation to the client, they were extremely happy with the direction and were satisfied that this was the symbol which captured the correct message for both audiences and just requested a few colour alternatives to finalise their selection. These were provided and below you will find the final logo which was chosen. I am happy with the colours which were chosen as they have the correct balance of bright and conservative bringing together nicely the spirit of the mindberry team. The colour also gives a hint towards the berry element without being obvious. Dark blue to represent blue and black berries, the purple was to represent red soft fruits and the green is to represent the leaf. This is meant to be a very subtle reference.
The logo will also stand the test of time compared with the berry idea as I think that after a while, the berry shape or image could look a little dated. This selected design is simple enough to carry mindberry through to the next decade without problem, in my opinion.




This logo is already in use on correspondence and will shortly be on their website which is being completed at present. My thanks to the mindberry team and I wish them every success in the future.
I also wish to thank all who read this article and any comments and constructive criticism from readers is valued so please feel free to offer any thoughts you may have on this design and the article.
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