Jackie Brown (aka JBW) is a design and development studio, focused on creating both physical products and digital experiences.
At JBW, we decided it was time to update our current brand identity and overall look, as it wasn't living up to our work standards. Through research and strategy, we developed a complete branding system that captures our essence.
Brand Attributes
We new, for sure, we wanted to make out logomark special by honoring our mascot, Kali.
Kali
Playful, half ear, big eyes, goofy, sun-seeker, sleepy head
Sketching Phase
At our studio, we believe that sketching, either on paper or digital, is the fastest way to transform our ideas into tangible solutions and directions.
Low Fidelity
We started exploring a few directions by playing with different shapes and lines. We were looking for a shape that was represented our brand and honored our mascot at the same time.
Explorations
Once we were happy with the shapes created, it was time to select our top five and explore a few variations of each one of them.
Mascot Design
Since we were the ones redesigning our current brand and felt emotionally attached, it was tough to select our top three finalists.
The final decision was made by showing the three finalists to team members and clients and through voting we came to a decision.
Construction
As Kali has its quirks, our new logo had to mimic that. As you can see the mascot's ears don't match. That's because when we adopted Kali, she came to us with part of her left ear cut off. It gives her personality!
We used the Golden Ratio to determine the height and length of our logo, as well as the proportions of the internal elements to the entire design. By doing so, we make sure all of the parts of our logo are placed harmonically.
Colour Research
Once we identified the right shape for our identity, we started exploring colour combinations.
Wordmark
With the mascot ready, we were 3/4 of the way to finishing the logo. It is now time to start working on the wordmark. We were looking for a font that was consistent with the mascot, thus we ended up choosing a sans serif font.
No typeface would've done a better job than Futura. Futura derives entirely from geometric forms (near-perfect circles, triangles and squares), with strokes of near-even weight and contrast and distinctively tall lowercase letters that rise even above its capitals.
Since Jackie Brown Works is not that small of a name, we needed to choose a typeface with supreme legibility, even when shrunk! To increase the workmark's legibility, we decided to use distinctive font weights for each one of the three words that compose our brand name.
We adjusted the title over the "j" and "i" to a perfect circle to match our mascot's perfectly round details.
Extended Form
Acronym
Colour Research
Final Form
White space and Variations
The logo can be used in five different ways - mascot alone, mascot + acronym (right or bottom aligned) and mascot + expanded form (right or bottom aligned). With the primary logo being the one with the mascot + expanded form bottom aligned.
Brand Styleguide
