The backstory of the latest logo commission. Start with the briefing --
Windson. Imagine a Norseman; son of strong winds, also, a son of the sea. Badass with style and an edge, literally or not. Powerful, mean & nice, steely, but not too polished.
Full Dress: The Money Shot
Making Of
Elements -- The Windson legend is elaborately packaged, visually legible if you want to, with every detail meaningful, yet powerful on its own, as an impressive shape. The shape is essentially a combination of the symbols for Wind and Son. The metal effect is part of the deal, but there is nothing more pure than the papercutting style. I make every detail count, or eliminate it altogether. Talk about hyperinfusion of meaning -- in other words, you cannot over-interpret this logo.
Wind -- Taken from meteorology, the symbol consists of the circle; indicating the sky, the shaft for the wind direction, and the barbs and pennants for the wind speed.
See the station model for interesting use of meaningful symbols.
Treatment -- The brief states "coming from the north," which determines the direction of the shaft. We want a powerful wind, a storm that is -- hence two pennants. Windson blows through clear skies, calling for a hollow circle -- as opposed to the Lightning and Meteors logo, which comes with thunderstorms.
Son -- We turn to heraldry, where the marks of cadency lend themselves to represent what we want. Being a first son, Windson carries a label of three points, a horizontal strip with three tags hanging down (Executed as an inverse shape).
Another symbol for son is the greek letter Upsilon, which shows in some intermediate versions of the logo.
The overall shape is that of a ship coming towards the viewer -- how else does a Norseman move? It adds stability and a sense of direction to the whole image. The zero-ground edges make the logo resembling a jewelized weapon, carrying the mean & nice theme.
Sketches
First draft --
Different blades and pennants, note the scimitar blade in the lower right, which is out of style here --
Globus cruciger flavors --
Even more sketches, see an oil rig and the Upsilon, also, note the sand drawings in the upper left --
Morphology
Three weeks, 50+ versions, lots of explorations.
More pictures
