Who doesn’t love wearing a big ‘this is my age’ badge on their birthday? We felt Hyphen shouldn’t miss out on the fun, so we designed a birthday badge to celebrate its 20th anniversary.

The logo design process involved four steps:

  • sketching any and all ideas that came to mind;
  • digitising three of these ideas and presenting them to the team;
  • taking in feedback to finalise the chosen logo; and
  • building brand elements for the new logo.

Part one: sketching

Of course, the hardest part of all is coming up with the idea. I like to start by sketching – not focused on complete logos, but rather elements. It might mean sketching objects that are relevant i.e. books, speech bubbles and pencils, or writing the number twenty in a number of different styles. I find it best to have no limitations. The more fluid this process is, the better the results.

As the sketching progresses, I start to find a rhythm. For this logo design, I was focused on the lines found in the primary Hyphen logo. This informed two of the early concepts; one using the lines as framing, and the other using lines to draw numbers. I liked these ideas but wanted the third concept to offer something different. That’s when the idea of using a speech bubble came to mind. I liked the way the speech bubble represented all kinds of stories and wasn’t limited to books or films or a certain type of client.

Part two: digitising

The logo really comes together at the digital stage. I usually use the digital space to play around with composition. It is easy to move things around on the artboard, resize and undo/redo as you go.

The main challenge that arose at this stage was figuring out how to merge the new logo with the primary logo. Would they sit side by side? Could we merge shapes and numbers into the primary logo? Or is the new logo best to sit separate to the primary one? I was determined not to take the easy route, but to avoid overcomplicating the logo with too many words and fonts, separation was a good solution.

Part three: review

All three concepts were presented to the team alongside mock-ups of the logos on various collateral like notebooks and tote bags. It was a unanimous decision to go with the ‘speech bubble’ concept. A big selling point was the flexibility of the logo; it can be used as a whole, or broken up into elements.

Part four: brand

Here, the design really came to life. As this is an extension of the Hyphen brand, it is not entirely new. Colours and fonts have remained consistent with the primary brand, however new shapes and patterns have been introduced. Just like the work we do for our clients who are celebrating a milestone birthday, it is important to maintain brand consistency while also offering a point of difference.

A birthday badge shouldn’t look like the name tag you wear every other day. The best ones dance and sing, so it only felt right to make an animated version of the new Hyphen logo that does exactly that. After all, twenty years is nothing to whisper about.

– Jane Heriot, junior designer