For this exercise I was asked to provide an illustration to for use on the menu of a sophisticated, quality fish restaurant – one in a chain sited in major European cities. Based on them using a menu of fresh ingredients and the ambience of the restaurant being modern, bright and contemporary in design, I set out to come up with something suitable.
The image will be used as a small size on the menu but potential also as a logo on the stationary and vans so it had to be something simple and clear.
So I first did a bit of a brainstorm spider diagram to think of related things like seafood, colours, shapes, other elements related to restaurants and eating etc.
I then tried out some first simple thumbnails to see if anything struck me and to start collecting ideas. I started just with simple line drawings, imagining I would be using india ink in a gorgeous blue, reflecting the colour of the sea but also a colour that is clean and fresh so hopefully would go with the modern vibe of the chain. I then started trying different blues and greens with markers for a more abstract ‘sea’ feel too and then started using India ink to do line drawings or full shapes using select brush strokes. This gave a nice elegant drawing as a starting point but I needed to do more research on actual logos.
So as always, I googled it! I created a moodboard in Pinterest here where I collected and looked at simple and elegant logos that brought different images together that really reflect a fish restaurant. What came out as the most abundant was of course classic ‘fish’ shapes or fish in the picture. So I wanted to try to be a bit different and looked for octopus, or prawn shapes and other ideas related to fishing boats etc.
Yet I was struggling to hone into some specific ideas so I decided that I would find a suitable name for the potential restaurant and started googling and writing down the most innovative names I could find for fish restaurants: from ‘Hook’ to ‘Bonito’ (both tuna and pretty in Spanish) and from trying Celtic names for sea gods to seabirds… I finally settled on ‘The Sea Garden’.
With that in mind I tried out some things more specific to what could be an underwater garden – seaweed, coral, ‘plantlike’ at the seabed, sea urchins etc as per the below.
Assessing all of this I realised that even though I loved the garden bed idea, it was still perhaps too ‘complicated’ a drawing for a simple 4x4cm logo so I decided on going along with something that wasn’t a fish but could also be a simple and well recognised shape : a prawn! – so I started with more ideas as per the below and decided to make the prawn really doubled over so it could be petal shaped and thus used to create flowers – as a garden would have!
I chose to make a simple shaped prawn using acrylics that I could then manipulate online to try out various different effects and ideas. Here is the original prawn:
I first tried out various effects in Photoshop to regulate the colour and texture trying out black and white, posterising, contrasts, reversing etc. to become even more familiar with the functions and to create a prawn flower and explore some of my favourite fonts from ‘dafont.com’.
I then played around with the different prawn logos to create a ‘menu header’ idea that the client could chose from, trying the fonts and different ways of using the flower and even used one single prawn to create a ‘leaf’ effect on the flower.
In the end I would prefer using the blue since it links to the sea more and is a clean and fresh colour so would settle for the final prawn flower to be the below:
And my favourite logo with text would be the below simple one flower and stalk with elegant font:
Final reflections
I realised that it was quite difficult for me to come up with a final logo without having some kind of theme or decision around what to focus on and coming up with the restaurant’s name was a good way for me to deal with that. Although it was not in the instructions per se, it was a way for me to solve a problem which, in a creative sense, is not something I am used to doing. I admit I was a little worried that this would not be accepted but then I also considered that the whole point of the course is to think creatively and some of exercises are geared at giving space for that kind of flexibility. In my current job, I am extremely used to precision and instruction so I see this as another way to really break out of that habit.
References
https://www.shutterstock.com/search/red+lionfish
https://www.shutterstock.com/search/sarda
https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/sea-seamless-pattern-seashell-seahorse-coral-1101319715
https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/watercolor-coral-blue-splash-splatter-hand-426748141
https://www.macys.com/shop/product/paragon-seahorse-gallery-wrap-wall-art-36-x-36?ID=10218142
https://www.dreamstime.com/illustration/seahorse-blue.html
https://society6.com/product/starfish–star-fish–blue-starfish–watercolor-painting_metal-print
https://wdrfree.com/stock-vector/coral-watercolor
https://dribbble.com/shots/943900-Hook-Fish-Tail?list=tags&tag=fish&offset=4
Hamptons Watercolour Blue Coral VI – Art Print
Blue coral wallpaper aqua ocean
새우 일러스트 ai 무료다운로드 free shrimp download
https://www.shutterstock.com/search/seafood+restaurant+logo
https://www.pngegg.com/en/png-wwjud
https://www.barewalls.com/art-print-poster/molluscs-shell-watercolor-clam-on_bwc27090403.html
https://dribbble.com/shots/1002553-Clam
https://www.istockphoto.com/illustrations/octopus
https://www.beepart.com/listing/787043541/white-octopus-macbook-decal-laptop
https://www.istockphoto.com/illustrations/octopus
https://99designs.co.uk/readymade/logos/58754
https://www.behance.net/gallery/66480207/SALTWATER-SEAFOOD-Restaurant-LogoBranding
http://www.thelogomix.com/blog/creative-and-inspirational-fish-logo-designs-11102342.html
http://logopond.com/gallery/detail/78664
https://www.behance.net/gallery/7938053/Logo-Seafood
https://dribbble.com/shots/4257669-Shield-Foods-Logo
50+ Fish Logos for Inspiration
http://jayce-o.blogspot.com/2012/12/restaurant-logo-design-inspiration.html
http://logopond.com/gallery/detail/158355
https://dribbble.com/shots/3444163-Fish-On-The-Block-Logo
Longsands Fish Kitchen
http://thestudiozoom.com/portfolio/logos/
https://www.behance.net/gallery/27851647/Pescado-Fish-Restaurant
https://www.shutterstock.com/search/seafood+restaurant+logo
https://www.behance.net/gallery/99396447/Logo-for-Salmonila-Seafood-Restaurant
https://creativemarket.com/bordo/2608305-Seafood-Fisherman-Restaurant-Logo.?utm_source=Pinterest&utm_medium=CM%20Social%20Share&utm_campaign=Product%20Social%20Share&utm_content=Seafood%20Fisherman%20Restaurant%20Logo.&ts=202009
30+ Awesome Logo Templates for Fish Restaurant
https://graphicriver.net/item/fish-food-logo/16837831?s_rank=141&ref=GraphicNdesign
https://creativemarket.com/A.R-STUDIO/92883-Fish-Food-Restaurant-Logo?u=radcat
https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/simple-grill-fish-restaurant-logo-template-1613440258
https://www.rawpixel.com/image/463639/free-illustration-vector-lobster-restaurant-fish-sea
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