Design studio housecleaning - excavated artifact #21

I don't think I'm ever going to get through the boxes and files of past projects that have piled up around my home-based studio over the past 30 years. At least I have no shortage of excavated artifacts to share with others. Here's another example of what a client thought they wanted - and the end result.

I recently came across another yellowing thermal fax page, this one from March 1996. A client of my sister's ad agency and PR firm sent the office a rough layout of a logo and flier they wanted the design department to create.

The client, Advocates for Home Buyers, wanted to promote guidebook the firm had produced for individuals considering purchasing a home. The concept for the flier included multiple fonts for the text and a rough drawing of illustrative element creating a house from the A, H and B letterforms (above left). The colors of red, blue and green were specified for the logo to be produced.

Luckily, my sister and her staff were able to convince the client to have cleaner logo created and the one-sheet flier became a two-color tri-fold, self-mailing brochure. The client also agreed that "Home Buyers" should really be one word as a business name element - even though the emphasis on the H and B were still requested to maintain some consistency with existing marketing and promotion materials.

I designed a tighter house image making use of the letters requested and set it within a circular shape containing the business name (above right). A new color palette was accepted by the client for the printing of the two-color direct mail piece.

Looking back on the approved image 12 years later, I would have refined it even more. However, the logo solution met the time and budget constraints of the job - and greatly exceeded the expectations of the client.

© 2008 Jeff Fisher LogoMotives

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