Once we’d settled on the logo shape, we decided to refine the logotype, colour and shape of the outer box. The typeface chosen was Courier New for it’s utilitarian connotations which seemed to connect well with the aesthetic of the label, and the text was positioned at a 60 degree angle to match up to the plug shape. The outer box was flattened and the corners rounded more to produce the version below; which would be the official ARC logo for the next 5 years:
The most recent change took this place this year, when we decided to make the lines of the logo and box bolder, simplify the shape of the logo, and revert to a Gill Sans typeface, with the emphasis on the word ‘angular’… This has allowed us to have 3 versions of the logo for ‘recording corporation’, ‘publishing’ and ‘store’, the first of which can be seen here:
END OF SERIES
Once we’d found the basis for the logo, the next job was to calculate the angles and scale of the metal plug (easy! 180 / 3 = 60 degrees between each prong) and make a representation of it in a vector graphics editor. You can see how this looked here:
This gave us a good idea of the scale and dimensions of the plug and how it would look with some text added. However, it was obvious that this was too complex for a logo and strayed from the original brief to produce an imaginary map symbol… so back to basics we go, this time on a photocopier. This version is getting closer to the final logo now, with three identical shapes that fit together.
As you can see there were two different options - the rejected one filled in the corners of the shapes to make bolder blocks. I still quite like this one, and it may one day be revived for a sub-label called ‘Triangular’… However the top option was deemed the best, so we set about adding text (in the OS approved Gill Sans font) and a border with curved corners to produce this - the proto ARC logo:
END OF PART 2
