Case Study-VolunteerLEON's Logo::2004
Before
After
The Situation
When you start seeing several versions of your logo floating around your office and on your website, it's a clear sign that something is wrong! Either no one likes it and keeps trying to 'fix' it or there are no company standards for the identity system. The end result is the same. It gives the impression of a confused, unfocused group of people with no clear direction.
That was the dilemma facing VolunteerLEON. The original logo was created for the website and then re-purposed for print. Because of it's pixel-based format (read 'done in Photoshop'), resizing and re-coloring were difficult and time consuming with unreliable results. It always had to be printed as a four-color process file, which was considerably more costly than a one, two or three color file in the correct format would have been.
The Solution
Research existing logos and marks of other volunteer organizations and re-design the logo for print and then re-purpose it for the web.
Now in a perfect world, I would have chosen to do a complete re-design to better reflect the organization and appeal to it's 90% women based audience, but I was advised this was an ASAP project and I took that request seriously. Four original concepts and several revisions later, a decision was made.
The original typeface was redrawn in an illustration program to provide a connection to the original logo. The star indicates that VolunteerLEON is located in the state capital and that every volunteer is a star. Unnecessary drop shadows and letter outlines were eliminated to provide a logo suitable for every purpose from black and white newsprint to full color billboards. A three color version was provided as requested by the organization, although it works just as well in one or two colors if the need to be more fiscally conservative arises.
VolunteerLEON has recently instituted the use of it's new identity. The logo appeared in the Tallahassee Democrat (local daily newpaper) in conjunction with their 'Make a Difference' initiative.
Clean, clear, solid, distinctive, relevant, memorable, easy for any commercial printer to change the color if they so wish and cost effective.
Quality and longevity = good value. This logo should serve them well for a good ten years.
