Practical Synthesis: LILAC Logo Development

The previous logo I felt was over complicated, the bright purple is too harsh and the buildings don't reflect the buildings of the cooperative itself. 

I felt that the logo needed to be simplified, and it needed to look more modern to suit the modern technology of the house, and its modern concept. 

I also think that the explanation of LILAC doesn't need to be included in the logo, as it is too lengthy and once you know what it is you don't need to see it every time. 

The colour is to vibrant, it looks un-natural and its dark which again doesn't give a natural feel which is what LILAC is about, natural, sustainable and environmentally friendly.

From my research into house/estate branding companies I decided that I wanted to use a bold sans-serif font, that appears to be wider than taller, I wanted to create a sense of open and modern. 

I couldn't decide which font to choose and so I changed the type to the colour lilac I had selected and this made it clearer. 

The serif font that I had tried for difference can't be seen properly in this colour. 

I also felt that full uppercase is more appropriate, and looks more formal, its more fitting as buying a house is a big commitment and it is quite a formal process, yet I still wanted to maintain a feeling of friendliness.

I then began to look into an icon that I could use along side the name and on its own, and maybe even as parts of icons. 

When I looked at the word 'lilac' the flower Lilacs, came up, they are made up of four facing petals and this is what I started with. 

I thought back to the main concepts of LILAC and the main themes in my essay, I thought about sustainability, and was reminded that LILAC housing has solar panels, which like the buildings are also square, when I searched this term this image of a solar panel appeared and I really liked the pattern that appeared, I started experimenting with this a shape for my own logo. 

I initially drew out four rounded squares on illustrator in a square formation, but I felt that the square was too obvious and didn't resemble something natural and so I rotated the shape into a diamond, this reminded me more of the Lilac flower I had first drawn. 

In the first shape I added more smaller squares to resemble leaves. However I felt that this was too complicated.

I tried the squares in an outline style too, I wasn't sure which I preferred, I did feel that an outline appearance would match the type more. 

I also made the edges more sharp/ straight to make it a little more obvious that is was a square. 

I also made the outline thicker, but I think that this made the shape look heavy, the top shape looks more open and inviting. 

I decided upon this as my final logo. 

I used the grid and rulers to align the icon to the centre and it is just a bit bigger than the counter of the C. 

The final logo as opposed to the original is a lighter purple- lilac, the colour I feel is lighter this is due to the tone of the purple being closer to white rather than black like before, and it is softer which makes it appear more friendly, and natural. The type is bold but not abrasive, the logo is still formal but not overly authoritative, and the capitilazation of the letters suggest they are equally important and that they are an acronym. 

The logo mark has a feeling of joining together, the squares within squares are representative of the housing and the site of LILAC itself. The open square in the middle again gives a sense of space and openness. Personally I feel that the mark could look like a  minimal representation of a flower head, a wind mill and as the original inspiration solar panel marks, which all suggest environment and sustainability.