B U I LD A N E W I D E NTIT Y
Visual Development Guide
B U I LD A N E W I D E NTIT Y
Visual Development Guide
Life
Visual Development Guide
Contents 01 A BOU T TH I S BOO K This visual development guide documents the context, research, and process of the formation of Life’s new logo. We start by looking back on Life’s history and identifying keywords to help develop logo concepts. In the logo development phase, we evolve the keywords to key phrases so they are more unique to the brand. After sketching divergently around our key phrases, we distill our directions and keep refining them until we are satisfied with one final logo. We then research similar logos and inspirations from visual standards guidelines to make sure we’re ready to move forward and create the final brand guidelines.
It’s All About Life 06– 09
OUR STORY 1 0 –11
IDENTIT Y EVOLUTION 1 2 –1 5
OUR MISSION 1 6 –1 9
BRAND KE Y WORDS
2
02
03
Developing Our Logo
Moving Forward
22 –2 9
52 – 5 5
EXPLORATION
LOOK-A-LIKE LOGOS
3 0 – 37
56 –59
DISTILLATION
STANDARDS GUIDE INSPIRATIONS
38 – 43
REFINEMENT 44 – 49
FINALIZATION
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01 It’s All about Life
01
It’s All about Life 06– 09
OUR STORY 1 0 –11
IDENTIT Y EVOLUTION 1 2 –1 5
OUR NEW MISSION 1 6 –1 9
BRAND KE Y WORDS
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01 It’s All about Life
OUR STORY
Our Story
Originally a humor magazine founded in 1883, Life was reincarnated as a weekly magazine with a strong emphasis on photojournalism after it was purchased in 1936 by Henry Luce, the owner of Time. Life was the first all-photographic American news magazine. It has impacted society in many unforgettable ways, allowing people to eyewitness events happening around the globe and be more aware of the world.
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Life
Visual Development Guide
Life: A Prospectus for a New Magazine —Henry Luce, 1936
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01 It’s All about Life
Our Story
To see life; to see the world; to eyewitness great events; to watch the faces of the poor and the gestures of the proud; to see strange things—machines, armies, multitudes, shadows in the jungle and on the moon; to see man’s work—his paintings, towers and discoveries; to see things thousands of miles away, things hidden behind walls and within rooms, things dangerous to come to; the women that men love and many children; to see and take pleasure in seeing; to see and be amazed; to see and be instructed...
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Life
Visual Development Guide
IDENTIT Y EVOLUTION
When it was first launched as a humor magazine in 1883, Life’s logo was very different from its iconic look. The classic logo debuted with the relaunched magazine in 1936. For decades, the logo went back and forth between a few variations, but the overall look had stayed the same—white sans serif logotype on a red box background.
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01 It’s All about Life
Identity Evolution
1883
1 922
1 93 6
1964
1 9 82
2000
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Life
Visual Development Guide
OUR MISSION
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01 It’s All about Life
Our Mission
Life’s mission is to inspire people to see life and share their view with the world
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Life
Visual Development Guide
BRAND KE Y WORDS
These keywords summarize what the new Life is about. They will become the pillars of Life’s brand development and future extensions.
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01 It’s All about Life
See Share World
Brand Keywords
K E Y WO RD 01 Life broadens people’s perspective and inspires people to go see the world themselves and experience diverse cultures personally. By doing this, Life reminds people to cherish their own lives and respect other’s lives.
K E Y WO RD 02 Life didn’t shy away from sharing opinions with its audience when it was still a magazine, and it will go beyond one-way sharing of its view in its brand new future. Life will be a place for people to exchange their thoughts and stories about life, which can be communicates with photography, art, videos, podcasts, talks, articles, etc.
K E Y WO RD 03 Life is not about fantasy. Life is about the world we live in together with myriads of other creatures. By documenting the fast-changing world, Life becomes an archive of the past, a journal of the present, and a glimpse of the future.
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01 It’s All about Life
Brand Keywords
“The camera is my weapon against the things I dislike about the universe and how I show the beautiful things about the universe.” —Gordon Parks
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02 Developing Our Logo
02
Developing Our Logo 22 –2 9
EXPLORATION 3 0 – 37
DISTILLATION 38 – 43
REFINEMENT 44 – 49
FINALIZATION
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Life
Visual Development Guide
EXPLORATION
In this initial round of logo exploration, we first brainstorm concept based on the brand keywords. We then sketch freehand using only pencil and paper. This is to make sure we generate as many divergent ideas as possible in the given amount of time so we can distill directions with more potential than others.
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02 Developing Our Logo
Exploration
K E Y PH R A S E S We brainstorm around our three keywords—see, share, and world—and identify three phrases as our logo concepts. Keywords are inspiring but they can be too broad for visual development. By evolving them into key phrases, we make them more unique to the brand.
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02
03
See
Eye-opening experience
Share
Exchanging ideas
World
Get yourself out there
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Life
Visual Development Guide
Eye-opening Experience
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01
02
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07
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09
02 Developing Our Logo
Exploration
Our first key phrase is “eyeopening experience”, which aligns with our mission of inspiring people to see life. Visual cues like a spark, light beam, eye, exclamation mark were our starting point for this concept.
We created many rough sketches and assessed them with a critical eye. Shown here and on the
We see potential in sketches 01, 02, 07, and 09 because they are graphic Ls that convey the idea
following spreads are curated sketches that better represent the range of ideas we explored.
of “be inspired” somewhat successfully. We will avoid further exploring sketches 06 and 12 because they are similar to some other brands in the market.
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05
06
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12
CO N CE P T 01
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Life
Visual Development Guide
Exchanging Ideas
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01
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03
07
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09
02 Developing Our Logo
Exploration
people to share their view. Visual cues like arrows, intersection,
and network were our starting point for this concept. We see potential in sketch 04 because it is “framing life” but without showing a camera. We will avoid further
exploring sketch 01 because it is more about conversation and community; we will avoid sketch 12 because it starts to look like IKEA’s logo.
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06
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CO N CE P T 02 Our second key phrase is “exchanging ideas”, which aligns with our the mission of inspiring
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Life
Visual Development Guide
Get Yourself Out There
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01
02
03
07
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09
02 Developing Our Logo
Exploration
our starting point for this concept. We see potential in sketches 01 and 09 because they convey the idea of “find inspiring experience
outside”. We will avoid further exploring sketch 11 because it is too decorative and starts to look like a consumer goods brand.
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12
CO N CE P T 03 Our third key phrase is “get yourself out there”, which aligns with our mission of inspiring people to see life. Visual cues like movement and intersection were
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Life
Visual Development Guide
DISTILLATION
In the second round of logo development, we are taking the directions that we like from round one further, and creating many variations, both on paper and in software. We want to assess which option better represents Life. We also evolve the key phrases so they will reflect our new logo directions.
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Life
Visual Development Guide
Framing Life In this evolved direction, we want to explore the idea of “framing life� and build a symbol using the form of L.
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02 Developing Our Logo
Distillation
D I R E C T I O N 01 We took three different sketches from the first round and created many different variations. However, this direction looks too flat and is not representing Life’s mission well enough.
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Life
Visual Development Guide
Spark of Life For this direction, we want to explore the idea of “spark of life� and build a symbol that represents the inspiring experience out there in the world.
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02  Developing Our Logo 
Distillation
D I R E C T I O N 01 For this direction, we worked on variations of the sketch shown to the left. We also pushed further and created some options that are more abstract and geometric. We see potential in the simpler forms.
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06
07
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09
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Life
Visual Development Guide
D I R E C T I O N 02 For this direction, we focused on making the light beams in the letterform dynamic but also balanced. However, we don’t feel like this direction is as strong as some of the others.
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01
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06
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09
02  Developing Our Logo 
Distillation
D I R E C T I O N 03 After some exploration, we feel like this direction is too complex and starts to look like a religious group or a national flag. We will not move forward with this direciton.
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02
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04
05
06
07
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09
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Life
Visual Development Guide
REFINEMENT
In the third round of logo development, we have already narrowed down our directions. We focus on creating subtle variations of the symbol and also look at the design of the wordmark. The wordmark needs to be customized. The letterforms should be simple but unique to the brand.
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Life
Visual Development Guide
Spark of Life
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02 Developing Our Logo
Refinement
S Y M BO L E X PLO R ATI O N We created more variations based on our most successful direction from the last round. We carefully compared all the options and decided to go after the one highlighted for the simplicity in forms and the balance in proportion.
We decided not to further explore the L that has a spark connected to the stroke, mainly because the treatment is not graphic enough and it doesn’t stand nicely with a wordmark. People might read “Llife“ as the brand name.
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Life
Visual Development Guide
WO RDM A R K E X PLO R ATI O N We explored some wordmark options and decided that option 02 is the more successful one because the altered F and E tie the components together nicely.
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01
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07
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09
02  Developing Our Logo 
Refinement
CO LO R E X PLO R ATI O N For logo colors, we initially explored genderneutral, vivid colors. Overall, none of the explorations in this round was successful enough. However, we are liking the lively yellow as it matches the personality of Life.
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Life
Visual Development Guide
FINALIZATION
In this phase, we fine-tune our logo until it reaches perfection. We also look at more color combinations and pick the palette that will represent the spirit of Life.
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02  Developing Our Logo 
Finalization
LOGO We addressed some problems in our logo to make it look more polished. These are small changes that make big differences.
B E FO RE
A F TE R
The spark is simplified
The proportion of the letterforms is refined
In the horizontal logo lockup, the spark in the symbol matches the cut in F and E.
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Life
Visual Development Guide
CO LO R In the last round, we liked how the lively yellow looked in our logo. We used the yellow as a starting point and explored two directions: adding an adjacent color such as an energetic
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orange, or adding a contrasting color such as a refreshing teal. We also explored various dark gray colors as a base color. We printed out all of these variations and assessed them carefully.
02  Developing Our Logo 
Finalization
We decided that the orange and yellow pairing is our better option because the combination is vivid and energetic. This color palette inherits the warmth from Life’s iconic red-and-white logo, but looks more friendly than the latter.
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Life
Visual Development Guide
Our new logo represents the inspiring experiences out there in the world
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02 Developing Our Logo
Finalization
F I N A L LOGO Life’s final logo has two components: the Spark symbol and the Life wordmark. The Spark symbol reflects Life’s mission of inspiring people to see the world. The Life wordmark is confident and straightforward, with altered F and E that
tie the components together. We move beyond Life’s iconic white-on-red color combination, which might be seen as conservative in today’s world, and go after a color combination that is vivid, optimistic, and friendly.
Symbol
Signature
Wordmark
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03 Moving Forward
03
Moving Forward 52 – 5 5
LOOK-A-LIKE LOGOS 56 –59
STANDARDS GUIDE INSPIRATIONS
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Life
Visual Development Guide
LOOK-A-LIKE LOGOS Before putting our new logo out there, it is crucial to research other logos that have similar forms and shapes to avoid confusion. The logos on the right and the following pages look like our logo, in terms of square shape, graphic L, and the use of negative space, but they are not our logo.
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03 Moving Forward
Look-a-like Logos
U PP STA RT CO N F E RE N CE
R . M Ü LLE R & CI E
LLOY D CO N SU LTI N G
B L ACK CU B E
H A N S LOOS E R
PO L A H A A N D SOM E RS
LE S LI E SA LT COM PA N Y
J L M Ø LLE RS M Ø B E LFA B R I K
N OTE C LI N E N
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Life
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Visual Development Guide
PH OTO + LITH OA N STA LT WE I SS
M A R I A M A ZZ A R A
RK W S E M I N A R E
K M A SSOCI ATE S
NARODNA PROSVETA
L A N D E SG A RTE N SCH AU I N GO L STA DT
ERZEUGNISGRUPPE BELEUCHTUNGSGLAS
LEDEBUR FLIESEN
PASSAGEN VERLAG
03 Moving Forward
Look-a-like Logos
A K USTI K- G ROU N D TO N G E R ATE
A RU U U W
BUNDESVEREINIGUNG DEUTSCHER HEIMSTATTEN
D E S F I B R I L A DO R I NTE RN O
DW G R A H A M A N D A SSOCI ATE S LT D
EUROPAISCHER ALLERGIEKONGRESS
MOBILIA CONTEMPORANEA
O NTE R A
TERIMOBEL
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Life
Visual Development Guide
STANDARDS GUIDE INSPIRATIONS We look at the visual standards guidelines from other brands and take inspiration from how they present their identities. We will integrate what we learn from these examples into our own brand guidelines later.
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03  Moving Forward 
Standards Guide Inspirations
USA TO DAY
R I G HT T U RN RE TA I L
The bold and confident presentation of the new identity is very efficient. Giving the icon a name is a good way to create a consistent voice in communication.
Clear diagram of logo proportion, clear space and lockup variations is straightforward and easy to understand.
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Life
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Visual Development Guide
E LE C TRO LU X
TH E N U E VA SCH OO L
Showing recommended hierarchy of brand typography is a good idea, because the look and feel of two brands can be very different even if they have the same brand identity fonts.
Big blocks of brand colors not only hold color information clearly but also communicate the hierarchy of brand colors.
03  Moving Forward 
Standards Guide Inspirations
D E VO N
B ROA DV I E W
Guidelines for logo alternates are clear and straightforward.
Examples of logo misuse are clear. The written contents are neat and easy to understand.
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Life
Visual Development Guide
WHAT’S NEXT
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What’s Next
As we’ve revealed Life’s new logo and are confident that it is good to go, it is time to go ahead and build a complete visual system around it. Please refer to our visual standards guide to see a detailed introduction to Life’s new visual identity system and guidelines for different applications.
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Life
Visual Development Guide
COLOPHON D E S I G N + STR ATE G Y Yijing Yan D I SCL A I M E R This is a student project, is meant to be transformative in nature, and was created in the spirit of academic fair use. This book is not intended to represent the parent brand in any way. I M AG E SOU RCE images.google.com/hosted/life time.com/photography/life originallifemagazines.com unsplash.com pexel.com moma.org T Y POG R A PH Y Muli Zilla Slab
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VISUAL DEVELOPMENT GUIDE