Typophile

Barbershop Quartet Logo

scott_reinhard

hello all,
I am designing a logo for a local barbershop quartet organization called 13th Colony Sound. It is an organization of mainly retired gentlemen that get together and perform.

With the logo, from what I understand, they want to capture the feeling of barbershop quartet as well as their southern "Savannah" location. The first I feel has been not to hard to capture. But with the Savannah feeling, I've tried to be a bit more subtle, using a Clarendon for the mustache and modified Clarendon for the nose, giving it that old-timey southern feeling. I want the logo to be fun, avoid the impulse of using a barbers pole, but reference the barbershop with the slicked over hair. I think the 13 should read as a nose and mustache first, and the number 13 second.

What are your thoughts, is it working? Is there a unified nature to it, or is this just a bunch of elements thrown together? How can I make this better? Thanks.

http://studentpages.scad.edu/~sreinh21/13thColony.gif

Nick Curtis

It's rather clever, actually...wouldn't change a thing.

Dav (formlos)

Hah, Now this is cute.. :)
Lovely..

mica

The logo is super! Is there a word mark too?

K Cerulean Pease

There is so much distance between the nose and mouth that I did not read it as a mouth at first. You might want to consider reducing or condensing the 3 some.

aluminum

Cute, though I'm not sure why there's a giant sperm on the top of the face.

(Maybe use an quote mark? Keeping it inline with an all-type logo?)

scott_reinhard

thanks for the comments, I'm condensing the 3, making the mouth more of an oval, and less of a circle. Also Im making the eyes look a little more like eyes, and not dots.

"I’m not sure why there’s a giant sperm on the top of the face."
–In context I don't relate the slicked over/old barbershop ad look of the hair to sperm. Point taken though.

I'm not trying to make this an all type logo, just the 1 and the 3. i appreciate the help

timd

You could try a curly brace for the hair – slicked and centre parted. Try playing with the scale as well because his eyes are too close together.
Tim

scott_reinhard

ok, I spent the weekend working on this guy, and here are my current results:

http://studentpages.scad.edu/~sreinh21/13thColony2.gif

I've worked on the proportions and shapes of the features, suggestions?

timd

It's a little too Elvis for barbershop.
Tim

scott_reinhard

maybe if I reduce the size of the hair, I could bring it back into the barbershop realm?

timd

Try using a glyph, to keep true to the rest of the design
{:{•<

aluminum

Why not make it all type based? We're designers, of course, so maybe the non-character elements stick out more, but I think it'd be fun to at least try one that is all type-based.

scott_reinhard

aluminum, I am totally with you. My instinct tells me to do an all-type based logo, but I wonder, is it appropriate. If the organization was more design oriented then yes it would seem. My intention for the logo is for the viewer to view a well designed illustration, i suppose, of a barbershop quartet singer, then the 1 and the 3 are to pop out. Kind of an "oh yea!" type of thing. It was based on the name "13th colony sound." I do understand that the eyes resemble apostrophes, and that might be why there's a push for an all-type based mark. I really appreciate your comments and suggestions everyone, this is very helpful.

scott_reinhard

hi there— I just wanted to let you know how this turned out. I am happy with the result, but wish I had more time to get your thoughts regarding the wordmark. With such short time alotted for this, I had to go ahead make some decisions rather quickly. Thanks for your great help!

http://studentpages.scad.edu/~sreinh21/BikeParty/HTML/barbershop.htm

Davide Gi

I think its a great logo!

Imagine getting a contract to make a logo for a barbershop quartet.

Possibly the most interesting clients ever!

cachaca

Wow very fine, i like it too.

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