In the greek island of Syros is located the charity "Friends of Animals of Syros" or "Filozoiki Omada Syrou - F.O.S." in greek. The members of the charity are doing a great job on helping stray animals. They run a dog shelter that is home to 72 dogs, and are always ready to help when an animal is injured or at risk.
In the island there is a second, equally active charity called "Syros Cats". Twice a year they organize neutering weeks for feral cats and all year long they run a feeding program for colonies of stray cats.
One principle of systems theory is that the whole adds up to more than the sum of the parts. 1+1>2 !!
To my deepest joy, the two charities decided to join their forces. What could be best for all the stray animals of Syros than having people from different backgrounds, with different skills and ideas cooperating!
The united organization asked me to help them create their public profile. The aim is the charity and its work to be recognisable so as reach out to more people.
I was glad to accept.
First stop: Creating a logo
My first attempt was to create a logo out of a dog or a cat nose. It could be transformed into the greek letter Φ!
But this idea was hit by the designer's curse...While it seemed quite good and plausible in my head, I couldn't make it work on paper... The result reminded me of Carrefour's logo and generally didn't come out the way I wanted.
No big deal, I thought. All I need is to change my perspective and try something new. What are we dealing with? Cats and dogs! Perhaps a figure of a cat and a dog? That would work in black and white as well as in colours. Something iconic but not "lifeless". Character is the element that will attract the viewer's attention and it is what I want for my design.
So, let's decide what each figure's character would be:
When I think of dogs I think happy, perky, alert.
When I think of cats I think graceful, smart, cunning.
And what if I intermingled the cat and dog figure to represent the united forces of the two charities? Perfect! I started doodling and here is what I came up with:
Can you tell that I still hadn't given up the idea of the letter Φ? xaxaxa
This sketch could work as basis for my intermingled cat and dog figures. I felt it was interesting raw material, that I could try to see how it would evolve on my computer.
Important features of this design are the ears and the common eye. Especially about the eye I produced several versions until I decided to erase all the elements that I could and leave it as bare as possible.
After all, less is more!
The blessing of designing is that sometimes it gives you more than you intended. For me, when this happens, it is a sign that I'm doing well! And this time it did happen. By eliminating all the elements I could, a new figure of a chick or canary appeared in the common cat and dog section. Can you spot it?
This new figure I tried to emphasize and make distinct by colour. I tried out several colour schemes - some more subtle, others more vibrant - before deciding upon the final design.
Do you want to know how I was inspired for colour scheme CS4? And why is it that in all schemes the dog is cool toned whereas the cat warm toned? There is a reason and has to do with the designer's childhood and experiences.
Here's a clue! xaxaxa!
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| My dog Vallia and my cat Rouchlas |
The final scheme was decided upon financial factors: A combination of equal parts of cyan, yellow and magenta would be more ink efficient in a home printer.
All the final design lacked now was the title of the organization. I decided to go for the abbreviation ΦΟΣ in greek. The font I used for it is "DPSDbeyond", an open source font designed through a project of the University of the Aegean. I chose this font because I like the little line inside the O that makes it resemble a little to Ω. The abbreviation ΦΟΣ resembles a little bit to ΦΩΣ, meaning light. Are you curious to see the final design? Here it is!
The reason I wrote this post is to express my wishes to the charity:
May you always be...
Happy and perky.
Alert for animals in need.
Smart to come up with the best ideas and solutions.
Cunning to overcome the difficulties gracefully!
May your combined forces reveal new means, ways and opportunities to achieve your goals!
May your work shine to Syros, to Greece and beyond and may it give a new light to the life of stray animals!
ΚΑΛΟΡΙΖΙΚΟ!
