My initial ideas for the Fostering Company are to use one of the following for a slogan: “Are you tough enough?” which in turn joins on to the idea of Fostering being the toughest job in the world, or “Take the Next Step” to help give people that push to move forward. Research has shown that those who do foster have been thinking of doing so for a long time, and they just need that push and motivation to go ahead.
For touch points I want to create a website, business cards, logo and posters / leaflets, as the client has stated they often rally in supermarkets and community events to raise awareness, and this would be a nice touch to give out. They don’t want a newspaper ad or magazine ad as they feel this doesn’t fit with their personal touch. I think one idea that might be nice to expand on is the idea of using very childlike crayons and images to remind those that the company is about children and they are the most important aspect of the company. They want it to be friendly and fun. The logo needs to be more rounded and softer, and less complicated, whilst the font also needs this: I think joined cursive would look more professional, but also feel it might be nice to just have a simple, bubble font that is rounded and lowercase. I want to experiment with these.
I created a mind map to show all of my beginning ideas in one place, so I could develop and experiment with them all, until I come up with a strong final outcome. I think mind maps are my favourite way of collating my information and ideas, mainly because it's so easy to follow and read.
It’s important when coming up with an identity system for a company to look into their Brand Drivers: descriptive and emotive words which describe their company values. I created a brain storm using words from my initial client notes and the brief. From this, I decided that the most important words were “Caring, Experienced, Motivated, Intimate, Responsible and Supportive.” Caring is the occupation and describes what the business focuses on. Experienced as many members of the team have actually been through this themselves, Intimate, as they describe their business as a small team where each member is connected to the case and there are no strange faces, and Supportive as they are capable of reaching 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I feel these are what I need the Brand Identity to represent and communicate.
I really wanted to adapt the logo as I felt it was too sharp, and wanted to simplify it. I drew their logo first, then a rounded version, and looked into different ideas: incorporating the initials with the circles so they embody the people, using 3 circles to symbolize the family, connecting the circles in a circle and with lines. Though some of these ideas looked quite nice, the three circles was far too simple and reminded me of another logo or a face, whereas the connection looked quite science like and something you’d find for a mobile phone. I think the initials actually over complicated the logo.
Going back to the idea of a family embracing, I thought maybe them actually embracing and being closer together and head on would look nice, especially when rounded. I wanted to adapt this.
I revisited their logo and turned the lines into a heart. It was still very sharp, though when creating this again with the round edges I felt that it lost a lot of the definition and shape of the heart, and was no longer recognizable. Scrapping that, I revisited the front logo I was developing earlier, of the three parties in the family together. I thought the child on the end, whilst looking smart, didn’t incooperate the brand drivers so I placed the child between the adults arms. I tried this overlapping, and also in the shape of a heart too but it didn’t work. I thought overlapping looked like a venn diagram.
I also looked into the idea of paper chains, showing a family: this was difficult as it was tough to create a stickman that looked and embodied all genders, whilst still showing a child. As fostering’s target audience includes both straight and gay couples, it was difficult to make the logo work without alienating some of the clients they want to reach out to.
I also looked into the idea of paper chains, showing a family: this was difficult as it was tough to create a stickman that looked and embodied all genders, whilst still showing a child. As fostering’s target audience includes both straight and gay couples, it was difficult to make the logo work without alienating some of the clients they want to reach out to.
After creating a lot of scamps I finally decided to choose this. My skills on illustrator are very limited but I am still quite happy with how it turned out. I feel the overlapping of the heads shows that they become one, they become a family: which is the message, foster a child, nurture them and give them a great childhood that they can pass onto their children and so on and so forth. That whole idea is a circle, a lifecycle and I feel my logo truly shows this.
