Initial Research

Existing Wordmark Logos

Before I start researching looking for a typeface to base my wordmark off of I wanted to take a look at some banks that already exist, these are both traditional style banks and more modern banks. I thought this would help give me an insight into any similarities between them in terms of typography and what sort of typefaces these brands are using in their logos, I also thought this would help me understand what I don’t want my brand to be and what typefaces I shouldn’t be using within my wordmark, this is because I want to target a younger audience and keep my brand modern as opposed to traditional.

 

Traditional Banking Logos

When researching into existing traditional banks like Santander, Nationwide, Danske Bank, HSBC and a few others I wanted to see if I could pick out an common trends and similarities between them to help guide me when it comes to creating my own logo, my main focus was on what typography they had used and the first thing I had noticed is that the original logo of the majority of these traditional banking brands used serif typefaces but have recently changed over to sans-serif typeface. This rings true throughout various other industries and I think it ultimately down to the rise of the digital age and the amount man-kind uses screens and technology, it is common to see brands recreating their logo with a sans-serif typeface as opposed to a traditional serif typeface and can be seen in brand like GAP and Louis Vuitton.

I noticed that some of the wordmarks utilised two different typefaces, one being a serif typeface and the other being a sans-serif typeface, which can be seen in the Nationwide logo, using two different typefaces is great for creating contrast between two different pieces of content. I also noticed that the wordmarks usually have a tighter kerning and tracking than normal, this could be to ensure the word is legible and all the letters are optically balanced. Another reason could be to reduce the amount of space to allow for the logo to be displayed larger.

One point I want to make is on the colours of these logos and wordmarks, I noticed that the majority share the same colour palette which features a dark blue, red and white. This could be something I should explore when it comes to defining my brand colours.

I have included some logos of traditional banks below to demonstrate some of their similarities.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Modern Banking Logos

When researching into some modern banking logos and wordmarks I noticed that some brands and companies were a little more playful with the typefaces they used in their logos in comparison to traditional bank logos, while traditional bank wordmarks were more sophisticated and professional in the typography they had chosen modern bank wordmarks opted for a more clean, modern style of typography to portray their modern values. I noticed that a few of these brands opted for a geometric sans-serif typeface, this is going to be something I will look into for my bank brand wordmark design.

A common theme that I noticed between all of these brands is that they place an emphasis on simplicity and modernism in their typography choices, this could be the same with traditional banks too, their typography choices are extremely legible and give the impression of being a professional and reputable establishment in which you can trust and rely on, this is important when it comes to banks and is often one of the core brand values of many companies.

I did notice that in modern bank logos the brands had decided to use a light blue colour rather than having the dark blue and red colour palette, while dark blue, purple and green are still used in some logos the majority of these modern bank brands opted for a light blue colour as their brand colour. This is something I am going to consider when it comes to developing my wordmark for my bank brand project.

I have included some logos of modern banks below to demonstrate some of their similarities.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Defining Typeface Characteristics

Before I start looking for the perfect typeface for my wordmark design I want to define some key criteria to help me reduce the amount of options I have when it comes to choosing a typeface, since their are millions available. Looking at my research and seeing that the majority of banking brands, both traditional and modern, are using sans-serif typeface that are clean and professional. I did notice that modern banks are a little more playful with their typography choice so this is something I will consider too. Another point I noticed from researching into some existing logos is that some brands use a bold typeface that stands out, while some brands use a thin typeface I think my bank brand would suit a bolder style typeface.

I have included a list of criteria for my typeface below to make it easier for me to choose a typeface.

• Sans-Serif Typeface
• Geometric Appearance
• Bold, Display Typeface
• Simplistic, Modern & Clean
• Playful but Professional

 

Fitting The Typeface With The Brand Values & Personality

Before going ahead and choosing the typeface I want to use for my wordmark logo I want to take into consideration the values behind my bank brand and what sort of personality I want my brand to have. My brand is heavily focused on being honest and loyal to their customers as well as providing good customer services and being their when they are needed the most, my brand is also focused on security and building for a better future through savings and investments. These values need to be considered when it comes to deciding on which typeface to use and it would make sense to find a typeface that falls inline with the same values, in this case the brand is about loyalty and honesty which could also relate to trust so it would make sense to choose a typeface that has some professional characteristics to it. I also want to consider the personality of my brand and the type of audience my brand is focused on, since my brand is focused on the younger age group I think it would be a good idea to make my brand a bit more playful and enjoyable that other banking and financial brands as this would help me appeal to my target audience a bit more, this playful characteristic could translate into my typeface choice as I could opted for a typeface that is a bit more rounded on the edges as opposed to having sharp corners.

I have include a quick refresher of the brand values below.

• Honesty
• Loyalty
• Build For The Future
• Security
• Customer Service

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Design Research & Inspiration

Typography Design Inspiration

I decided to take a look at some existing wordmark designs and typography designs that I like the style of and I think would be a good fit for my modern bank brand in terms of the typeface choice and other aspects like kerning and tracking. When I was researching for design inspiration I wanted to keep in mind what my brand was going to be about and try to target the more modern style of logo design which is commonly seen across a variety of companies today.

Below are a few examples of the typographic style I want to aim towards with my banking project, this is down to a number of different factors, the first being their choice in typography really highlights and demonstrates a modern style of design which will, one help my brand appeal to a younger audience and, two, help my brand establish a name for itself online. I like each of these wordmark logos for their own reasons, I really. like the typeface choice in the Uber logo and how the letter ‘r’ looks like it has had the should shortened and how there is clear visual difference between the x-height and the cap height and ascender line on the typeface. The kerning on this logo is also really nice and the space between each letterform is optically balanced. I like how the other two wordmark designs have used typography in a creative way by introducing some sort of iconography or illustration into the word to help communicate the content better, this is something I would like to explore further in my own logo design and see if I can blend my wordmark and monogram into one cohesive design.

 

 

 

 

Creative Typography Design Inspiration

While I was looking for typography and design inspiration I noticed that some wordmark designs used some creative typography techniques where they were utilising the letterforms in a word to create an icon or illustration related to the word, I also noticed that these designs utilised the use of white-space within the shapes and curves of the letterforms. I’m curious to see how I could incorporate this into my own brand and possibly include some sort of illustration or icon of a bank vault to fit with the name “Volt”.

I have included some examples of this creative typography below to demonstrate how they use the shapes of the letterforms to create interesting wordmark designs in addition to how they have used the negative space in the letters. I love how the “Shirt” design has tried to emulate the outline of a shirt within the letter “T’ on the design, I think this is an extremely creative use of typography and can make the wordmark unique and different from other brands. If I was going to explore this idea I would go with a similar design to the “More” design where they have used the counter in the letter “O” to create a shape or illustration with the negative space – this would be exactly where I place my bank vault monogram. This idea is taking my interest as there is a lot of different avenues I could explore with this with animation, negative space, monograms, combinations marks, iconography and a bunch of others, I will be exploring this idea further when it comes to sketching my wordmark design and generating ideas for my bank brand.

 

 

 

 

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Idea Generation & Final Design

Initial Sketching Ideas

Once I had finished researching into what kind of typeface I wanted to use for my wordmark and what sort of design style I wanted to go for I wanted to start doing some small initial sketches to get a rough idea on what I want my wordmark to look like, this was regarding capital letters, punctuation, kerning, letterforms and shapes, and considering any letter modifications if they will be needed to achieve what I have in mind.

I have included an image below of some of my sketches to give you an idea on what direction I am looking to take my design, these are only my initial sketches to determine what sort of characteristics my typeface needs to have.

 

 

I noticed from my sketches that the wordmark and typography designs that appealed to me the most had some similarities between them, the first similarity was that the logos featured lowercase letterforms without any capital letters which helped define a clear leading line at the top of each letter form with the exception of the ascender line, the second similarity was in the letter ‘t’, I noticed that I wanted the ‘t’ to have a shorter leg with a vertical cutoff as opposed to having a curved leg/tail. The cross-bar of the ‘t’ is also crucial as when its above the x-height line it seems to take away from the clear visual line of the typography, I may need to modify a typeface for this but I believe most typefaces have the cross-bar of the ‘t’ under the x-height. I also noticed that the typefaces works a lot better with sharp, straight edges as opposed to curved edges which is something I should consider when trying to choose a typeface for my wordmark design.

 

Typeface Exploration

After having the style of typeface that I wanted to use for this project in mind I wanted to go ahead a start looking for fonts and typefaces on various different website like Font Squirrel, Font Space, My Fonts, Google Fonts and Adobe Fonts. As this is a brand and will primarily be looking to release digital products in the future I thought it would be a good idea to ensure that the typeface had a web font available for use on mobile applications and websites, for this reason I chose to direct my typeface search to sites like Adobe Fonts and Google Fonts as they provide this functionality. I went through Adobe Fonts and began to favourite the typeface I liked the most and shared the same characteristics as I have previously described, I also made. us of the refinement feature on Adobe Fonts which allowed me to limit the search to sans-serif typefaces that had a thick stroke weight and a low stroke contrast which was exactly what I was looking for.

I have included some screenshots of my Adobe Font search below and some of the typefaces I favourited for this project.

 

 

 

Refining My Typeface Options

Once I had a solid idea on the style of typeface I wanted to use and what sort of characteristics I was looking from the letterforms in each individual typeface I decided to create a small mood-board of my favourite typefaces that had, almost, all of the criteria I was looking for. My main focus was on the ‘o’ and ‘l’ and ‘t’ letterforms as I wanted those specific letterforms to look a certain way in my wordmark logo. I noticed that there wasn’t a “one shoes fits all” typeface for what I was after and the majority of these typefaces will need further modification to achieve what I want for this project.

I have included some of my typeface exploration and refinement below to give you an idea on what direction I am taking my wordmark design and what characteristics I am looking for in a typeface for this project.

 

 

I decided to refine my final choices down to 3 typefaces and went on to analyse each feature of the font to give me an insight on what typeface would be best for my modern bank brand in addition to realising any modifications that would need to be made in order to achieve the idea that I have in mind.

I have included some images below to give you an idea on what I was looking for in each typeface and what sort of modifications would need to be made to the letterforms to get the design I want for this project.

 

 

Proxima Nova Bold

The main characteristic that I liked on the Proxima Nova typeface was the letter ‘t’, this was almost exactly what I had in mind for my wordmark logo although the letterform would need some modification to remove the left part of the cross-bar on the ‘t’. I really liked how the typeface looked when the kerning was set to 50% of the font size and felt like the weight of the typeface was perfect for a wordmark logo without being too bulky, another aspect I liked was the amount of space in the counter of the letter ‘o’ which would make it perfect for me to explore my monogram idea further. One thing I did notice was that there was some overhang of the baseline and x-height on the letterforms with curved or rounded edges like the ‘o’ and the bottom of the ‘t’, although this is not a major issue it is still something to consider.

 

 

Mundial DemiBold

I found the Mundial typeface to have a lot of similarities to Proxima Nova on the sense on kerning and the space of counter in the letter ‘o’, one significant difference between the two typefaces was the letter ‘t’. On the Mundial typeface the cross-bar on the letter ‘t’ was a lot longer and asymmetrical in comparison to the Proxima Nova typeface, this would also need some form of modification to get the idea I have in mind and I think the cross-bar of the ‘t’ should be shortened on the right-side. Similar to Proxima Nova, the Mundial typeface also has a small amount of overhang on the baseline and x-height when it comes to letterforms with rounded or curved edges like the letter ‘o’ and the bottom of the letter ‘t’.

All in all I think this is my most preferred typeface as it is the closest representation to the idea that I have in my head for the wordmark design in this project.

 

 

 

Gilroy ExtraBold

While Gilroy had a lot of similarities in comparison to the other two typefaces I had chosen, it also had quite a few differences too. The main characteristic I noticed was that the Gilroy typeface was more geometric and bulkier in appearance in comparison to Proxima Nova and Mundial, the near perfect circle of the counter in the letter ‘o’ would work perfectly for my monogram idea but the space is limited in comparison to the space in the ‘o’ on the Mundial typeface. I personally love the tight kerning and how the typeface looks when the kerning was set at -50% of the font size but I think the typeface is a little too bulky for my bank brand, I could look into using a different weight within the typeface like Gilroy Bold or Gilroy Semi-Bold.

 

Final Design

For my final wordmark logo design I decided to go with the typeface Mundial as I thought it was the best fit for what I was looking for and trying to achieve with my design, I had to modify the typeface a little bit as the letter ‘t’ wasn’t exactly how I wanted it to look and manually adjusted the kerning to get all the letterforms sitting tighter together. I will explain my reasonings behind the design modifications below to give you an insight into my design thinking.

For the ‘t’ I wanted the cross-bar to be removed on the left-hand side to allow me to create a flush vertical line between the letter ‘l’ ad the letter ‘t’, I was inspired by to Uber logo where they have the letter ‘U’ and the stem on the letter ‘b’ creating a vertical line of negative space between the two letterforms. I also wanted the tail on the ‘t’ to have a limited appearance to it creating a clear visual end point of the overall wordmark.

Due to the modifications I had made on the ‘t’ letterform I had to initially convert the typeface into curves to allow me to edit each individual letterform with the Pen Tool and Node Tool within Affinity Designer, the modifications of the cross-bar of the ‘t’ meant the kerning between the ‘l’ and the ‘t’ was too big in comparison to the other letterforms. I wanted to try something different when it came to kerning the letterforms within my wordmark and I had read that turning the typeface upside-down would allow me to focus more on the space between each letter as opposed to the actual letters themselves, I thought this worked really well and allowed me to achieve the tight kerning I was after for my design.

Overall I am extremely happy with how my wordmark logo came out and think its a great starting point for developing my ideas further into the monogram logo and brand guidelines for this project.

I have included a final render of my wordmark below to illustrate how my research, sketching and idea generation influenced my final design and they typeface I chad chosen.