Font, logo and app logo experimentation

To begin my experimentation process, I wanted to start out with font faces and types. In order to get my creativity started, I created a mood board of existing shopping apps and their fonts, as this is relevant to me and my project; In creating this mood board, I noticed that all of the app faces were more often than not, the logo for the company or brand, too. In order to make my experimentation consistent, I have decided to incorporate both logo and font experimentation into one blog post. It became very obvious to me that the font used on application logos were often that of the brand's name and the font would reappear throughout using the apps to keep things consistent such as their brand name at the top, another observation made was that all of the logos have been kept very simplistic and consistent. For example; the use of no more than two colours used, the name of the app and its recognisable font only to be used and only one use of a symbol, which happened to be a triangle and not a particularly complex shape. I believe that the overall trend of keeping apps simplistic and using branding of the name to only be used stems from the psychological idea of brand recognition, as this app may be users first contact with the brand, in having their name and branding splashed across their first confrontation, the brand soon becomes instantly recognisable and somewhat trustworthy.

As spoken about previously, It has become obvious to me that when branding an app, the app face is the first port of call in terms of brand recognition. Knowing this, choosing a font is a very important aspect I must look into as it will define 'Snapthat' in terms of brand recognition. My intention is to sketch, create and use examples from the internet to finalise some font ideas before bringing them to the attention of my target audience focus group as they will have a final say in what the font will look like. I also wanted to sketch some ideas as I knew what It could be possible to add my handwriting in as a font through Adobe, something I may experiment with if I create something worthy of consideration. As for my online experimentation, I have decided to use the site 'Dafont.com', I am aware it is of much disapproval to any digital professional however it is the site that offers me the most variation in terms of font faces. Once gathering the fonts together and adding them to my sketchbook, I annotated around them weighing up the pros and cons of each font, for me the font that stood out to me the most from my online work is the one known as 'One More Light' to me the font is very natural in terms of musculin or feminine features that you may find in any other fonts, especially in the ones seen above in my mood board. Another detail that really drew me in was its domineering aspect, the use of a bold typeface is very eye-catching and easy to read, not like others I wanted to experiment with that were difficult to read such as the font 'Detailed script' other fonts I wanted to experiment with just did not compare to the use of 'One More Light' either being too childish or too 'fancy' to name some of the problems.

In comparison to the hand-drawn work I created, I feel that my creations were not as fitting to 'Snapthat' as 'One More Light' is, I feel like the font really represents the brand, however, I will create an example of using both my best hand-drawn suggestion and a pre-made font as 'mock ups' of the applications app front and will go to my focus group to decide. The font from my hand drawn process I would like to work with is the font from the bottom half of the page and right in the centre, I am already concerned about recreating the font drawn to the same level of detail but I know it must be done to have two strong examples of what my font, logo and application logo will look like. 

As you can see from these very basic mockups alone, the pre-designed font already gives such a better appearance to the app. I created the mockups in black and white as during my research prior to my experimentation, the majority vote stated that black and white would look the nicest overall, therefore, I wanted to keep in theme and consistent with this. Now that I have decided on a font and colour scheme for the icon, I want to develop two mock designs to bring to my focus group and work with to find a deciding winner, for my finale designs I wanted something uniform and relevant to my brand, taking in context from fashion apps above, I knew to only add one or two simple images to the app, due to this; I created two ideas that I think do well together.

I believe that the app icon I like the most is the one with the added detail of the triangle, I knew I really wanted to add an eleme t of detail into my mock designs to add some more intrest into the first impression, I also believe that the app example on the left is excuted more professionally. Taking these desgins further, having now found my font and potentially my app design logo, I would like to take these designs to my focus group and gather their feedback together and make any changes I need to.