Spaces for Ideas: The Brand – A Critique

I’ve been following the Spaces for Ideas project for a while. It’s a brilliant project from D.T. over at Design Sojourn.

If you want to get caught up on the project, the 4 stages so far are below:

1) Spaces for Ideas: The Beginning

2) Spaces for Ideas: The First Prototype

3) Spaces for Ideas: The Brand

4) Spaces for Ideas: The Final Prototype

The critique below is concerned with the 3rd stage: The Brand.

Head on over to DT’s post to see how he arrived at the solution. It’s brilliant, and the process mirrors very closely what many Graphic Designers go through to establish a successful brand identity. It is a great distillation by someone familiar with design thinking, and the mix of intellectual and artistic talent required to bring an idea together and make it work visually.

I really feel the overall design is well executed, and the spacing, balance and weight of the type, kerning and overall balance is right on target.

As I looked at the finished version, however, something kept bothering me. The visual weight of “for ideas” kept trying to compete for attention with “spaces”, and it felt like they were at odds with each other.

As I was looking at the stack above on my screen at work, a curious thing happened. A feature of the particular screen I work with, is that the bottom 1/6th or so of the screen looses a bit of crispness/contrast when I look at images. Combined with the small “for ideas” type in the smallest prototype made those two words look significantly lighter.

That’s when the whole image snapped for me visually. The word “S P A C E S” clicked into place, and “for ideas” resolved itself visually.

I think taking it that one step further over all strengthens the piece.

Once the visual balance is worked out, then it’s time to take a second look at “SPACES” and make sure the kerning feels right. I think the two “S” characters at either end could use a bit more space, as they are they feel a little tight, but that one is subjective. Unfortunately, I don’t have the original vector file, so all I can do is throw together a quick screen mockup:

Before:

After:

Production notes:

Ideally, this can be accomodated as a 2-color project, with a pantone cool grey 2-4, or better yet, pantone 877 (metalic silver) as the accent color for “for ideas”, and a nice rich black, ideally UV coated for “spaces”- the realities of production, however, sometimes forces one into a compromise. Depending on the silk screen, a decent simulation of grey could be made using halftones, but I would highly recommend testing on a prototype before going ahead with production. The last compromise is keeping the colors as-they are, and that may end up being the final option available.

-KG