Our Logo
By now you've probably seen our new(ish) logo around the Hall, on our website and everywhere in our branding. The new logo marks a change for the Hall which had long operated without a unifying identity and is a way of proudly projecting what we're about; honouring our Victorian and civic roots while showing our intentions to create a long-term, modern community space. In short, we want to continue to be a valuable hub for the people of Grange to use and to be proud of, and a good place to start is to give ourselves a fresh and recognisable face.
Some ideas going into the design; we wanted it to to look confident yet friendly. Taking into account the Victorian history of the building we wanted to reference the aesthetic of the time, possibly incorporating some of the unique designs and intricacies found around the Hall. We wanted the design to be scalable and versatile, i.e. able to be used in print and online, as a standalone graphic or as a full bold title. Basically, we needed a couple of components that could be combined in different ways to suit any context.
Initial sketches are often the most fun, being able to explore lots of different avenues without worrying too much about the end result. As you can see from the image above, there were lots of directions to try:
focussing on elements of the building such as the roof shape and finial
combining the strong letterforms of V and H
brining in details from the Town Council heraldry such as the shells
more modern, type heavy approaches
combining building elements with type
pattern-making
In the end, the strongest starting direction was the grid pattern. This grid is found throughout the building, including on the internal roof of the Main Hall, most doors, and inlaid into various walls. The grid can most obviously be seen on the ceiling of the Main Hall, as shown in the architect's original drawing, below.
Next time you're in the Hall, look around, and you'll see the distinctive grid pattern appear in a surprising number of places. The grid shape could act as a standalone stamp as well as being paired with a complimentary typeface. It also offered an opportunity to be explored further in the future, by adding, or removing columns, or playing with the elements within. In short, it seemed versatile and visually distinctive.
The second stage was fleshing out the concept, and trying it out in context.
By playing around with the grid concept, we were able to see what worked well and what didn't. We could see how the different elements (grid and type) could be used together and separately to create a visual language suited for the Victoria Hall. Some ideas felt too corporate; we wanted a friendlier and more recognisable identity, we didn't want to feel like a business suite. Inspiration was taken from the design of the London Underground logo by Edward Johnston (1872–1944), one of the most famous cases of early 20th century design. The roundel feels unique, and the text is strong, legible and focussed. The roundel can be used by itself a an identifying mark, and used with text to communicate a message directly.
Starting with the left hand design (above), we introduced colours (based on colour in the building), stripped the linework for a flatter feel, decided it was too corporate, received feedback that the mark looked like a crosshair, reworked the layout to include V and H, tried out a few layouts.
After much experimentation (see above), our end result was clear. VH in a box for a standalone mark, combined with "Victoria Hall" typeface. The whole lot could also be encapsulated in a longer box to bring both elements together, and as a reference to the boxed type of the London Underground logo and other Victorian/Edwardian civic infrastructure projects.
Each element also work separately, giving us confidence and versatility when we're talking about the Hall's identity. The type face is an amended version of Century Gothic. Century Gothic was chosen as it closely resembles the Underground's Johnston Pro and it's descendant, Gill Sans, both iconic Edwardian-era-esque typefaces. Century Gothic comes standard as part of most word processing packages which would make it easy to use and create a consistent visual identity. For the logo itself, Century Gothic was the base, and the spacing was manually adjusted to be visually pleasing. The edges and corners were smoothed to soften the overall impact. It's probably not something a casual viewer would notice, but it adds to the overall mission of having a solid base and friendlier details.
The grid also offered up some nice opportunities for pattern creation and a slightly broader visual language (see below). As the identity is young we still have room to work out what is effective, and how best to use this framework. Having a grid built into the logo is helpful when designing anything new; there's always a baseline to align to, and clear edges to work within. This will keep our general output looking consistent and intentional.
All in all it's the start of a very positive and confident new identity. We can confidently use these combination of type, grids, stamps and icons across any and all media to let people know "we're here!".
Its on our website, outside the hall (see right), in our email signatures, on posters and notices, in our newsletter, on social media and will certainly pop up in more places soon.
Keep an eye out for the new logo around the Hall and around Grange.
Thanks for reading!
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