Leah, the Designer

VESSEL LOGO REDESIGN

Vessel is a new company based in San José focused on creating cutting-edge athletic wear. Their mission statement is, “To create a lighter, more comfortable and efficient water wearable athletic wear brand by implementing a removable hydration pack inside of our tops.” Vessel’s co-founders Jasmine Sanchez and Andrew Amador reached out to me to discuss a revision of their logo.

DISCUSSION

During our first meeting, we discussed the issues that had arose from their current logo. Their main concern was that it was reading more as “Veel” than “Vessel.” I explained that this was due to the center two S-shapes being at a different slant than the rest of the type, as well as extending outside of the container which made the two white S-shapes less legible. The negative space between them now created one black S-shape. Overall this made the company’s name far less recognizable than their competitors.

We spoke next about the choice of imagery and we decided to keep the two center “SS” as reading as a road or a pathway because it is an important theme to their product being easily portable for outdoor activities. From there I proposed trying different typefaces so that the whole word “VESSEL” would appear to belong to the same family, instead of appearing disjointed.

PHASE ONE

After getting a clear idea of how Vessel wanted to be perceived as a brand,
I set out to make a mood board as well as examples of competitor’s logos.
Most athletic companies began with more detailed imagery, but over the years have become much more minimalistic and monotone. I set out with the goal of keeping within that theme while focusing on making Vessel more legible and recognizable to a general audience. I also wanted to explore the theme of water since that is what differentiates their product from other athletic wear products.

PHASE TWO

After reviewing the different options for the direction of the new logo, we decided to keep the same idea of a combination logo, but with the S-shapes representing more of a fluid pathway or river shape. This would keep with the feeling of fluid water and motion while still maintaining the original idea. The challenge then became how to manipulate the S-shapes to appear as a fluid shape while still maintaining legibility when paired with the neighboring letters all while avoiding creating shapes within the surrounding negative space.

PHASE THREE

The final phase involved working out the fine details. Options were reviewed and finalized regarding the shape of the S-shapes and how they interacted with the surrounding letters. We decided that the surrounding letters should have slightly softer edges in order to match the wide curves of the S-shapes. Though they also wanted options that included a more traditional san-serif font such as Helvetica, so I also included those options.

However, the final choice of 10.7 was selected because its softer edges paired with a sharp slant gave the feeling of motion while all of the letters looked to be within the same type family. The “V” was kept at an upright angle while the following letters were italicized. This helps the illusion of the word starting from a stable upright position and then motion follows when reading the rest of the word, much like a runner at the beginning of a race. This motion paired with the flowing curves of the S-shapes mimicking a road or hiking path lends itself to the product’s purpose and the environment in which it is used.

FINAL VERSION

After reviewing the different versions of the logo, version 10.7 was selected.
After this decision, I cleaned up the edges and sent them various file types for use in their future products. I also provided Vessel with a clear space guideline as well as the central “S-shape” as separate files for the purpose of being used as a pattern or secondary graphic element.