A few weeks ago a good friend of mine asked me to design the branding for her sisters’ start-up.
I’m a minimalist. I love flat, straight and simple forms. No matter what type of work I’ve been asked to design, I always keep to a few points:
- Minimal use of minimalistic icons
- 1 font family (max 2)
- Two colours, preferably 1 primary + grey
- … you get the picture.
But I guess all good things must come to an end…
The brief was: simple and something to do with nature. Everyone likes a new challenge so I jumped straight into “designer” mode. I sent my clients the options I came up with, who, after a week or so,came back with a photo:
They stated that THIS is their logo!!!
I was dumbstruck… My logos were in line with the brief, modern, flat… Great. And these guys wanted… a pine cone. My first thought – what do they know? I’m the artist, I’m the one that will tell them about good, modern, flat design…. And then I remembered the New Guinness logo:
Guinness brand refresh by Design Bridge
I absolutely love this brand refresh – They really nailed it.
I had a look to see if any more non-minimalistic treasures popped up while I was”flat” designing. Below you have a few I was able to find. All perfect:
Chance Organisation branding by Design Bridge
The Honors Techcomer – Gold Book
Kittel’s branding by Tobias Hall
The Designers League Identity
Logos/Emblems 2015 by Milos Milovanovic
Sherlock Holmes Logo by AURORA Creative Studio
Cacao Journey Club logo by Santiago Landaburü
Eterna Libertad – mezcal logo by Law Breakers Mx
But what does this mean?!?!? Is this the end of minimalism? Has simplicity become too mainstream and begun it’s demise? Maybe richer design doesn’t mean it can’t be simple… it’s just… richer.
This return to Art Deco, with a futuristic twist, will definitely bring something fresh to design. Scrolling through behance I feel like I’m looking at a copy/paste page. The logos are great – but they’re all the same.
After doing my inspirational research I am ready to start on my new, not-too-minimalistic-but-still-modern design. Here are a few ideas:
The client came back and this is the “chosen one”:
Maybe Minimalism isn’t dying after all?!
This project has taught me to look beyond the trends of “now”. With my next branding job, I will be sure to give an even bigger variety of options.