IT213 Lecture: Project #3

Logo (5% of Final Grade)

I. Purpose

The purpose of this assignment is to create a logo for your fictional organization. The logo should convey something about the organization that it represents; it should send a message to the viewer.  The message may be something as concrete as a truck logo for a trucking company or a diving board for a swimming pool maintenance company.  It may be as subtle as conveying a feeling or attitude such as one that gives “formality” or “confidence” or “fun entertaining feeling”. What does the style of type convey, the position of lettering?  Be able to explain your choice.

Avoid any trademark conflicts associated with the design or a copyright infringement. Be aware of creating an untasteful design.  A design that may be misconstrued to be offensive to ANYONE is not acceptable.

II. Steps

• You will use Adobe Photoshop to create your logo. Your logo must meet the following requirements:
  • File size: approximately 200×200 (It is okay if the logo is not in the shape of a square)
  • File format: JPEG, GIF or PNG.
  • The logo must include a graphic (i.e., line art) of some sort (not purely text and background). Do not take someone else’s graphic (free or otherwise) and modify it. Note: You will not lose points for including your own photograph(s) into the logo. However, besides the photograph(s), the logo must contain line art or some other image that you create.
  • The logo must incorporate at least one special effect by using tools, filters, and/or styles (e.g., gradient, sharpen, drop shadow).
  • The logo must provide sufficient color contrast (between foreground and background, between text and image, etc.) and be CUD-compliant by testing it using the color-blindness soft proofing features in Photoshop:
    • Choose View > Proof Setup > choose either Color Blindness – Protanopia-type or Color Blindness – Deuteranopia-type. (To comply with CUD, check your logo in both views.)
  • In addition to the logo, write a narrative that explains (1) how and why you chose the specific design for the logo, (2) what special effect(s) is incorporated into the logo, and (3) how the logo meets accessibility guidelines. The narrative should be at least 2 paragraphs (more than 150 words).
  • Copy and paste the logo in a MS Word document (Edit à Paste Special à Device Independent Bitmap) along with the narrative, and submit the document via Blackboard using the Assignments Tool (“Course Tools” à “Assignments” àfollow the “Project 3: logo” link).

III. Grading

Project 4 – Logo
Northern Virginia Readers
The design for the Northern Virginia Readers logo is really just an extension of the website design.
The font and color choices were dictated by those used on the website. The graphic in the logo is
different from any used on the website, but it follows the same theme – an open book. (A different
open book – a photograph – was used on the website top banner.) The open book used in the logo
is a much simpler single-color graphic, which is more appropriate for a logo.
The use of the open book graphics includes a couple of ideas. First, a book is an obvious choice to
represent reading. Second, an open book, as compared to a closed book, is more inviting and
suggests reading a book as opposed to owning a book – it is more interactive.
The color and font choices used in both the logo and the website are less obvious.
The font – Berlin Sans – is one that is simple, but more eye-catching than some of the more
frequently used sans serif fonts, like Arial and Verdana, at least in part because it is more unusual.
It is fairly casual, but elegant, which seems to make it not without weight, but not too heavy and
serious. The logo makes use of only a couple of the colors – dark purple, medium purple and white
– included in the website color scheme, for the sake of simplicity.
It should be noted that some of the choices and ideas mentioned in this narrative are really
reasons assigned after the choices were made. The selections were often more intuitive and made
according to what “felt right.”