Kam's Klips Design Process

Next I brought the sketches into Illustrator, where I experimented with different typefaces, placements, and sizes of everything. I noticed while I was working, that some of the logos I had come up with were giving off more of a salon vibe rather than a barber vibe, so I decided to stick to the ones with the haircutting tools, like the scissors, and the clippers, since they are more associated with a barber. I also decided to change the scissors from being open to being closed, since they were giving off the wrong kind of feeling than what I was going for.

After getting all my ideas down in Illustrator, I picked the best five to further experiment with. Since I had initially started making the logos with a sans serif typeface, I experimented with serif typefaces until I found ones I felt worked best as part of the logo, and continued to refine them until I was able to narrow down the logo ideas to the three best ones.

After finishing the logo, I moved on to coming up with a slogan next so I could have a base for the visual metaphor that I would use for advertisements. After brainstorming a few ideas for the slogan, I settled with the Fresh slogans, since they were simple and catchy, as well as having a quality that I would be able to utilize a metaphor with. After finding the slogan I wanted to use, I moved on to the visual metaphor for the business’ ad campaign. I finally decided on choosing a metaphor for the word “Fresh” which would be used in the slogan.

Keeping the word Fresh in mind, I started with coming up with synonyms for it, to help with coming up with a metaphor. Using words like clean, cool, and stylish, I looked up popular similes that could help me brainstorm further ideas for the metaphor. I then decided to think more like the audience I was trying to reach, and came up with well known stylish things that are usually associated with men. Ex. Rolex watches, Ray-Bans Sunglasses, Sports Cars, etc. Going further into this idea, I began to think about the kinds of things my male family members are into, since they are also within the range of people I’m trying to reach, and cars were the main common theme across all of them.

Keeping with the main car idea to go with the metaphor, I began thinking of different ways you can interact with a car, through the five senses, and using that as a way to visualize the metaphor that I wanted to go with. Since using the auditory sense seemed to be the best way to go for my ad campaign, I decided to associate a car’s engine revving with the sound of hair clippers when they are in use.

After finishing the logos and the visual metaphor, I began working on the color palette for the business’ brand. I used color theory and color psychology to help me decide what color I wanted to use for the primary color. Then I used Illustrator’s color guide to find other colors that looked best with the primary colors I chose. Out of the colors I picked, I mainly wanted to work with either blue or brown, because blue gives off feelings of trustworthiness, uniqueness, and authenticity, while brown gives off feelings of dependability, reliability, and resilience.

For the primary color, I felt the blue looked the best with the look of the logo, so I continued to match colors with it to find the secondary and accent color. For the secondary color, I went with a lighter tint of the primary blue that I used, to have a lighter color to offset the dark hue of the blue. For the accent color, I chose the burnt red color because of the stark difference from the blue. The final two colors are a lighter tint of the accent red that I used, as well as a lighter tint of a purple that worked well with the primary blue. I chose the purple as the final color so I could stay within the range of the analogous colors of red, blue and purple, while leaning more towards the cooler colors since the primary color is blue.