Contextual Essay

For my Digital Artefact I chose to design and produce logos for various fictional and non-fictional companies/projects. I decided to develop this project as I thought it would be useful and attention grabbing to those undertaking the same subjects or degree as me. As most of us, if not all, would be requiring a logo. I thought that this could be a quick and effortless way to get an immediate audience as a large quantity of my Twitter following consisted of BCM students.

As I already had prior knowledge of how to use the programs and platforms required for this project, I decided that this would be an interesting topic for my DA as it involved both my skills and my interests, therefore being an enjoyable and educational project.

I took inspiration from several places such as: Instagram, Pinterest, Reddit, and even logos of peers. After conducting some research into some popular logo designs, I decided to see some patterns and trends of what was popular and easily distinguished by users and creators.

As for developing these logos, I firstly began by sketching up some designs on paper than further transferring them over to Adobe Illustrator, where I would than start to develop the digital version of the logo. After curating the design, I would save the Illustrator file, and export the design as a PNG, and a JPEG file, that I could than upload to my Instagram page in an effort to curate an audience.

Throughout the development of my project there were key moments in which I learnt some critical aspects of my DA. Over the duration of my project I faced challenges which shed light onto circumstances and set backs I had not previously taken into consideration, such as the Instagram platform in which I had intended to use as my online portfolio of logos.

As discussed in my third blog post, I had come across some issues when uploading logos to my Instagram page which I had not accounted for, therefore adding more time to the development process, thus elongating the time required for each individual logo.

I found that curating an audience for my DA was a lot harder than originally intended, although my target audience was students studying similar subjects to mine, the target audience proved to be so large that I was unable to reach a wide majority of them purely though two platforms; Twitter and Instagram.

Throughout the journey of my DA, I learnt the importance of integrating as many platforms as you can consistently control and update, in order of attracting the largest audience possible. Along with this, I discovered the importance of communication between developer and user, the audience of my DA had a major impact into the development of my logo’s, often commenting and messaging about what they would like to see in a logo.