Process Details

The ironing out of how I wanted Lydia’s Mark. Illustrator screenshot.

Thumbnail sketches for the marks of the Maitlands and Lydia.

Logo Making Process Details

In-progress Illustrator screenshot of my mark creation.

Making Logos based on Beetlejuice

I chose to use Beetlejuice (1988) as my base movie because I knew there was a 2018 musical based on it and I wanted to see how different they were. It was interesting to compare and contrast the two versions. After watching the movie, I chose to make my logos on Lydia Deets and Adam and Barbara Maitland.

While it was not too difficult to choose aspects/items for the thumbnails, it was much harder to combine the two. I knew that I wanted to use the house for the Maitlands due to how prominent the house was in their character arcs. I decided on using the sheet ghosts as the secondary aspect since it was the version that I liked best. I placed the ghosts behind the house to invoke the memory of the model town in viewers.

I was thinking about how to combine the items for Lydia’s mark when I got the idea for her mark. I decided to make the mark based off the attic door. While there are few scenes with the attic door in the movie, it marks an important turning point in the movie. The first time we see Lydia interacting with the attic door, the Maitlands prevent her from opening the door. Despite this, Lydia attempts again and appears to try and pick the lock. I felt that this creativity and tenacity was characteristic of Lydia and made it my mark for her. On a separate piece of paper, I developed the idea more, going through different designs of the L and D until I found one I liked.

After choosing marks that I liked, I uploaded photos of the sketches into InDesign to line. I created shapes and merged them to make the marks. I originally had Lydia’s mark colored with warm, earth tones but then decided to make it greyscale to better reflect Lydia’s Gothic tendencies. I used the Maitland’s original house colors as my base for the palate of the house. I knew for the Maitlands that I wanted text that was scriptlike to reflect their warmness. That guided me to Salamat. I was unaware that I needed to find a text to say Lydia’s name since I assumed the initials would cover that so I didn’t choose one.

If I were to redo this project, I would make the marks more colorful and choose a text for Lydia. I am content with how the elements of the marks interact so I would leave those as is.