Creating the Manifesto Brand #3 – The Decision

We had three possible directions to choose from – two more than the optimum number of choices for a group of three company directors to make a joint decision. Nevertheless, we plunged into heated discussion with gusto.

Here’s our decision timeline:

Day 1: Direction 3 is out. Just like that. Great option for a food brand but not for a digital agency we feel. Laters.

Day 2: Torn between 1 and 2. Direction 1 feels more appropriate for us and is a good match for the agency name. But do we want to sacrifice the versatility that Direction 2 will provide..?

Day 3: Yes we do. Direction 1 it is. Full steam ahead with Constructivism. My comrades and I are of one mind!

Well, almost one mind. We instruct Katie to press ahead with Direction 1 but to also secretly mock up any strong ideas she has for Direction 2. We probably almost certainly won’t go for it but it might help confirm our decision if we start feeling like we’ve gone the wrong way later.

The First Design Round

This is the work up of Direction 1 that came back:

In top left there’s a pallette and some ideas for icons/buttons. Then there are the logo ideas.

The circular wrap-around logos were too busy, the badge-y type ones at bottom left too generic.

The ones at top right though we really liked. They had a sense of dynamism that we felt really suited the company. They represented the coming together of ideas, design and technology in the service of people. We were onto something.

We also liked the heavier font used in the logos at bottom right.

We agreed with Katie to take the red-boxed elements into a second round of design, bringing the screens into the ‘crossed lances’ logo, dropping the ‘M’ and the speech bubbles, and swapping the cogs for the lightbulb in the bottom set of logos.

The Second Design Round

Here’s what came back:

Of which Katie said: “I tried a few ways but they all look a little unbalanced to me? I mocked them onto business cards too if it helps with the decision making…”

It certainly did: we agree about the cog logos being unbalanced but are rather taken by the ‘crossed lances’.

We plump for the middle of the three which we feel is more balanced, more people-centric, more Manifesto.

We feedback and pretty soon we’re in possession of our finished logo and colour palette. Tune into part 4 to see what the Manifesto brand guidelines look like…