A big part of my design development was doing pro-bono work for a youth organization at church. On occasion, I’ll be requested to do some design work as a favor. In some cases, they’ll ask for me to dig out old designs to have them re-purposed & updated.
About a few weeks ago, they asked me to update an existing logo design for an annual track & field event.
The design didn’t have much meaning—just a design that contained a lot of flourishes & random elements tacked on together. They wanted to reuse the design, but I offered to update the style a bit. This was perfect, because they actually had new criteria for this year’s design:
- The new colors were navy blue & gold (possibly inspired by my alma mater’s team colors)
- The design had to be timeless, so they can reuse the design for the future
- The artwork had to be printer-ready
The third request was simple: they just needed vector files & the outsourced printer took care of the rest. The other steps insist on a redesign. They liked the old design, but I streamlined the look & removed all the extraneous elements:
I wasn’t really happy with the meaningless streak behind the runner, so I made sure to scrap the idea on the next round. I was starting to experiment with Avenir, so I changed out my old Helvetica for something just as clean. I kept the star & the running silhouette:
I pushed this even further. I did some quick brainstorming & listed a few words related to both track & field:
Outside of the obvious running man, I tried to think of other track elements that could be simplified. I came across the idea of track lane lines. In this next version, I exaggerated the lines for something more stylish:
I also brainstormed ‘finish line’ & thought of ways do portray that. The idea evolved into the finish line tape. A blue figure against a glowing golden backdrop assisted in making the crossing of the finish line even more dramatic. I provided a few samples of logo containers for final approval:
I must say, the shirts came out wonderfully. Here’s to more years of using this logo!
