Ideas and Inspiration:
For this project, I decided to make a logo for a band/artist (myself being the artist in question). I chose this because my course topic revolves around the idea of creating an extended play album and all the parts involved to take it to press. This design would be the logo that you could exchange for just stating the artist name in the design.
Design Process:
In this design, I was mainly concerned with balance. The central part of the design is the large letter in the middle and everything expands out from that part of the design, so balance was key. As for research, I looked at drum heads and drum sticks to inform the design of the aforementioned elements. Often, drummers will use their logo as a drum head for their bass drum, since I decided to use sticks, I decided to show them resting on the rim of a drum. The significance of the design is that I started in music as a drummer and it is the instrument I am most proud of being able to play.
The design process started with me sketching out a few renditions of the design. I knew I wanted to use a drum sticks and my name, so I started with the drum sticks. I sketched them out to make the “T” and from there decided to balance out the image by putting the rest of the letters of my name on either side of the letters under the umbrella of the “T.” I originally had planned on putting my middle initial as a large letter behind the drum sticks in the center of the two pairs of letter to get rid of empty space but the balance was much better once adding it on top of the drum stick. I then decided to create a drum head for the sticks to be resting on to round out the logo.
Technical Design:
The elements I used in my design were two drum sticks, a drum head, and text. I modeled the drum sticks from drum sticks that I had next to my desk and played with the design by placing them on top of my snare drum in different ways to see how the design looked before doing the sketch. The process I used went as follows:
- Create the drum stick starting with the rectangle tool.
- Use the scissors to remove the bottom line of the rectangle.
- Use the ellipse tool to create the bottom of the stick.
- Use the scissors to remove the top part of the ellipse to complete the bottom of the stick.
- Use the direct selection tool to round the top of the rectangle.
- Use the ellipse tool to create an ellipse for the drum stick head.
- Use the direct selection tool to manipulate the ellipse into an egg shape.
- Place the drum stick head on the top of the drum stick.
- Group the objects and duplicate.
- Rotate and center the duplicated object.
- Create the text and enter the entire image.
- Use the ellipse tool to create a large circle for the rim of the drum.
- Adjust the stroke to add weight to the rim.
- Move the drum head to the back.
- Expand all items in the image.
The design went swimmingly, I did not run into any noteworthy issues in the design process.
Sources and Materials:
All images have been created by me and all tools and fonts used come standard in Adobe Illustrator.
Wright Songs 
Hello again Taylor,
I enjoy your creativity with the T. Not only is it both T’s in your name but they are also drum sticks. My first piece of advice or idea would be to bring the drumhead in as a circle or had more detail to it to make it clear to what it is. At first I had no idea it was a drumhead, I thought that it was just a circle thrown into the design. Another piece of advice I have is to change your colors, or add more that are brighter. I was in your group last unit, and based off of what I have read in your posts I get the feeling you are a more lively person. Since you want this logo to represent you and your music I think lively colors could fit it well.
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Hi Taylor,
This is a really neat design that utilizes some of the important elements of your overall theme.
I have a few different ideas to improve your design…
First idea being that you could easily utilize the technique of negative space with this design. I think it would be really neat to have a blacked out drum – link here… https://www.logoarena.com/logo-contests/bobby-a-drums-n8586-d16869 Just the outline of the drum with the little bumps on the side (I have no idea the technical terms here) and then your drumsticks and text as you did in the original.
Another thing that I noticed that is a little random is your “c” in the middle of the design. I completely understand that you may want to ensure that your name is different than the rest, but it might look a little cleaner to either take it out or put a circle around it to create some unity. One more little thing is that I would do is get rid of the line on the tip of the drumstick that cuts into the main part of it, if that makes sense?
Also just for more reference of the negative space idea… https://www.amazon.com/Beatles-Black-White-Official-Licensed/dp/B00CP6WB9A
I really like the logo! I think it matches your topic for the semester and reflects your passion very well. See you in class tomorrow…
-Amy
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Hi Taylor,
Overall I think your design is going to a good place. The overall concept is really simple, but if done well will leave an impact with the people it reaches. I think that the way you have the T set up using drum sticks is really clever. I do think however they can be lined up in a different way, such as having the vertical stick passing through the horizontal stick a little bit. I think this would help people understand that they are drum sticks better; as before I read your post I didn’t put that together. I do think that using the drum sticks however is very clever. I would recommend using a different font as the one used in this draft is very simple and not visually appealing as you so commonly see this specific type. I can not wait to see what your final looks like!
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Hi all,
Thank you for the feedback. For the redesign, I am going to look at making the drumhead more instantly recognizable. I appreciate the image from Amy suggesting adding the tension rods and strainer as well as making it more obvious that you are looking at the rim of a drum instead of a random circle. Another suggestion I like is getting rid of the line between the stick body and the head, although I may not delete it if I can find a way to make it blend better (on a real drumstick it protrudes a bit, so the two parts are clearly defined by the nature of the design of the stick). Another thing I will look at is changing the font as it has been suggested that it comes across as too plain. I will look at changing the palate as Chase suggested but I will be cautious as I feel like this may end up in affecting the way that people see the image and it may make it less obvious that the two main objects are drumsticks.
-Taylor C. Wright
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