Our New Logo & Corporate Identity Design

In June 2016 Quentin James Design celebrated 18 years in business. During those 18 years we’ve had several different designs of company logo and corporate identity design which have come and gone as fashions and trends dictated. Sometimes we’ve changed our logo and identity simply because we got tired of the old one!

A Fresh New Logo Design

Instead of trumpeting our ‘coming of age’ milestone we decided to take some time out to re-evaluate our own identity, our roots and our future. We decided it was time for a fresh new look, new logo design and new corporate identity. So the birthday party plans were put on hold and we started doodling, creating and designing a funky new birthday gift to ourselves.

We knew our new identity had to be as unique as our name. It had to convey our love of graphic design and typography, plus it had to be a standalone motif which was instantly recognisable to existing clients. The final design had to be intelligent and creative to help us retain and attract new business.

Previous incarnations of our company logo design had focused primarily on the letter ‘Q’ but we felt it was time to expand the design to encompass at least the letters ‘Q’ and ‘J’, maybe even ‘D’ if at all possible. After several years of utilising modern sans-serif fonts, our new logo design now sports a classic serif font, ‘Clarendon’ which actually inspired the typography and final design.

Company founder and lead designer Quentin explains: “Whilst looking through our library of over four thousand fonts, I stumbled across a forgotten typeface – Clarendon. I liked the tail of the letter Q and and wondered if it could be combined with the letter J. Following on from a few initial doodles, I played around with the characters in Adobe Illustrator, splicing the letters, redrawing their stems and decenders, then after a few hours I arrived at something close to what we have today – a hybrid character made from a Q and a J.”

Our New Corporate Identity Design

To provide some continuity from the previous logo design and corporate identity, we retained the subtle blue vignette in the background of the logo roundel. The supporting typography was updated to use the contemporary sans serif font family Gotham, which provides a stylistic contrast to the serif font Clarendon used in the logo itself.

When it came to the company stationery set, Quentin was keen to think different and try something a little unusual. Normally, a new logo and corporate identity would simply be applied to printed business cards, letterheads and compliments slips, envelopes and postage labels. For our new identity we based it around a series of printed stickers. These stickers were designed to be multi-purpose and applied in different positions for different uses.

For example, when stuck to a plain business card, half of the sticker appears on the front of the card, with the other half wrapping around on to the rear of the business card. Similarly, when applied to letterheads and compliments slips, three quarters of the sticker displays on the front face of the letterhead, with the remaining quarter wrapping around on the rear of the letterhead or compliments slip. The high gloss, rectangular stickers, printed by our friends at FastPrint, contrast in feel to the high quality uncoated Conqueror Wove Concrete paper, board and envelopes specified for the initial run.

Stickers For Everything

“One of the reasons for using stickers was to give us flexibility when it comes to the paper and board we use for our letterheads and business cards. If we want to change the stock based on new trends, new paper types or even seasonal events, we can do this easily, without incurring any additional print costs.”

To complete the new corporate identity design, we created a series of small, circular, complimentary sticker designs. A couple of the designs are to be used on statements and payment reminders, whilst one celebrates our 18 years in business and one encourages people to ‘Like’ our Facebook page. The team at Moo.com printed these circular stickers for us and we’re already looking to expand the range of complimentary sticker designs following the overwhelmingly positive feedback which our new logo and corporate identity design has received.