Development of Logo

We started the development while keeping in mind what Lady Justice (Click Here for more information) stands for. After analysing our own design we decided that we should simplify the weighting scale and make the word 'Justice' look more interesting. The 'original' logo looks like this:

Development in pictures:

We like the typeface, but it looks too simple and too feminine. It isn't 'catchy'.

Black graps the attention easily.

Simplified weighting scales

Logo

A logo is used for recognition and is especially designed to indentify a trademark or a commercial brand. It can be an ideogram, symbol, emblem, icon or sign, which are graphical elements. A good logo is different in shape, colour, fonts and images compared to other logo's.

Of course, we can't use the logo that is designed for Justice. If we do that we could just copy the whole CD cover that they made for their album and say we have done it. Therefore we have to look at existing logo examples, analyse them and develop our own logo. Justice's initial logo is a Cross, we would like to do something totally different because we don't want to come up with something that looks a-like.

The best way to design a logo is to look at existing examples first, then drop down/draw as many logo's as you can think of, after this choose the six best ideas. You finally choose one that you like the most and develop this one further. We can also choose two logo's and combine these to come up with a new logo, but this is all part of the development.

When designing a logo we have to think about several aspects; are we going to use images or words, or both of them? What colours are we going to use (which one(s) are suitable for Justice)? What shape is the logo going to have? etc.

Here are some examples of logo's. Some logo's are very obvious and recognisable, because they are used in the market a lot or shown on the street/advertisements/commercials etc. The Coca-Cola logo for example, this brand first came up in 1885 and the product was called Pemberton's French Wine Coca. The non-alcoholic version of it was provided in 1886. This drink developed itself into the Coca-Cola drink we know nowadays. This brand has been on the market for decades and it has been promoted for years and years, which makes it easier for us to recognise as it is a well-sold product. To read more about the Coca-Cola brand Click Here.

Some logo's are easy to recognise because they use typography (Coca-Cola). Images on the other hand need to be associated with the organisation. The WWF logo for example, it shows a panda but there is no name which suggests what company it is. WWF stands for the World WildLife Fund, also called the World Wide Fund for Nature, this organisation focuses on the conservation, research and storation of the evironment. This logo became recognisable for the audience because it has been promoting itself a lot through advertisements and shocking/beautiful commercials about their purposes and their aims. To read more about the WWF Click Here.

Example of advertisement in which a deer is shown made out of garbage.

This leaves us with two choices: Over-promoting our product, or using typography to make it clear toward the audience what we are trying to sell. Therefore experimenting is an important thing.

Examples of designed logo's by Alicia:

This logo is quite simple. It is based on straight lines, which you can 'see' if you imagine a square around the whole logo. This logo uses typography and is very recognisable as you can read the name 'Justice'. If we are going to choose this logo, it still needs a lot of development, first of all this is handdrawn and as you can see the lines aren't straight. It just looks messy. On the other hand, hand drawn images show more personality than stylised images on the computer. So in other words; we need to develop the logo according to what we want to convey.

This is one of the simple logo's we have made. It sticks to the original logo, which is a cross. In our eyes this is way to easy because it is simply copying the original.

Headphones are associated with music, also the electronic/dance music genre. If you look at pictures of bands in this genre, you can always find pictures of people wearing these headphones while playing songs and mixing them. The name 'Justice' is formed out of the wire that is supposed to plug into the sound system. Personally we think that this logo is very good, the only disadvantage is that headphones are associated with ALL kinds of music, therefore it is hard to associate it with only electronic/dance music



This image is very strong, it is a hand reaching out to you while 'Justice' is 'floating' above the hand in the air. It is as if the hand is saying; take it, enjoy it, which is exactly what we want you to do. The only problem with this logo is that it isn't a logo anymore. The drawing has become so complicated that it could work better as an illustration (front or back cover). One of the main things someone has to think about when creating a logo is that when you increase or decrease it in size it should stay recognisable. When a logo is too complicated you might not recognise it when you decrease it in size because it will become a black blob. A solution to this problem is taking away details, the only problem with image is that it needs its details to show you what it is, oversimplifying therefore isn't an option.

Again, this image is very strong as well, but that is because of the story behind it. The word Justice means a lot on it's own, this combined with measuring balances makes the logo extraordinary. The idea behind the measuring balances came from Lady Justice (lustitia) who is the Roman goddess of Justice. Lady Justice is portrayed wearing a blindfold, in her right hand she is holding a sword and in her left hand the measuring balances. Click Here to read more about Lady Justice. The meaning of these object are as follows;

The sword symbolises the power of reason and justice.

The weighting scale is used to weight the strengths of a case's support and opposition.

The blindfold is worn so that justice is meted out objectively. Aspects such as money, fear, power, weakness etc. are hereby ignored.

The weighting scale in the logo pulls all the attention to itself, while it should draw the attention to 'Justice'. The way to change this is to develop the word 'Justice' into something more interesting and simplify the weighting scale into something less interesting.

While using Illustrator I made the next images:

This logo is very colourful, we decided to make the logo colourful instead of black and white. Even though black and white can be very effective we were convinced colour would be better. The colour in these images are yellow/gold, which is a very 'rich' colour. Besides rich it also is a very heavy colour as gold is associated with richdom and status. The word Justice has got a certain status as well, which combines perfectly with the colour.
We found it very difficult to put the word Justice into this image. The weighting scale takes all the attention away from the word Justice itself. Not just because of the colour but because of the shapes as well. We personally believe that simplifying the image would not work. Not because it is hard to recognise it is a weighting scale, but because the image we want to convey simply just loses its meaning. Therefore we have decided to leave the logo out. Not just because it is too difficult to design one, as everything is possible, but just because we want to keep the 'right' image of Justice.

Typography

One of the main things that is really important for a CD Cover is the typography used on it. We are presenting Justice and we need to find something that suits their style of music, personality and character. The typeface Starburst is a suitable font for Justice's their cover. The only problem is that we decided to cut out the text on/in the cover so you can see the CD. This font is very hard to cut out:

Fonts like Times New Roman, Helvetica, Comic Sans MS, Tahoma, Arial and Trebuchet are seen as standard fonts which are mainly used for magazines, websites, newspapers, etc. We are convinced that Justice isn't standard at all, which means that the fonts names above wouldn't suit them. We are looking for something more appropriate for Justice and their music style.


A very good website that shows a lot of different fonts is fontspace.com. This website enables you to download special fonts, you can also search for special fonts that are tagged with a certain name, such as 'Rock', or 'Metal', but also '1950s/60s/70s/80s' etc. We found the font Sylar Stencil on this site by searching for electronic typefaces.

This typeface is very easy to cut out, which is still a part of our original plan, unless we find a typeface that is absolutely fantastic but can't be cut out. The typeface isn't feminine or elegant at all. Because Justice exists out of two men it is obvious that elegantness wouldn't suit them.

We think that this typeface does suit Justice, but we feel it isn't complete. It still has got some feminine aspects as the font is quite round. There is no elegantness as the letters are divided by lines going straight through the letters. It is all about the way someone interpret it though, someone might see it as just simple lines dividing the letters, while someone else might see it as lines of light breaking the letters up. The setting where electronic/dance music is played uses lights as well, which means that this typeface and the setting are connected and linked back to each other. Or in other words, this typeface could suit Justice very well.

This typeface is easy to cut out and it does suit Justice in a way, because it is different and not standard. It does reminds us of a space shuttle and astronauts, this is mainly because of the S. We want something more electronic, something that shouts; dance/electronic music. It has to be a typeface that informs you about the genre of the music without even knowing the band or artist.


Even though this typeface is called Space Case it looks less alienated than Teacher A. It looks as if this typeface has been designed using squares as the letters are perfectly aligned. Even though they seem square, the letters themselves are a bit feminine as they are round in the corners.

This typeface makes me think of parties such as Sensation White and/or Black. These parties are the extreme versions of a typically Dutch party, and are mainly associated with drugs like XTC to give a greater experience. We don't want to associate Justice with drugs as that isn't our aim. It also contains a different music genre; house and trance even though famous DJ's have played on these parties: Andre Tanneberger, Armin van Buuren, David Guetta, Erick E, Ferry Corsten, Tiesto, etc.

It is very hard to find a suitable typeface. Therefore we have to be less critical about things. We preferably want something that portrays the genre of the music as well. In the end it doesn't really matter if the typeface does or doesn't portray this. Extra aspects such as light use (lines through the typeface) can be added later by ourselves. After experimenting with Illustrator while looking at typefaces, we came up with the typeface Bauhaus 93.

This typeface is special, not standard at all and it doesn't only suit Justice, if feels right as well. This typeface is published by Microsoft Typography in 1993 which means it isn't a new typeface, but not an unbelievably old one either. It is a sans serif typeface, this doesn't combine with the t-shirt we ordered; a black t-shirt with gold letters on it saying DVNO. The letters on the t-shirt are serif and bold. Bauhaus 93 is bold as well but not as musculin as the typeface on the t-shirt. Unfortunately we couldn't choose which typeface there would be on the t-shirt. Therefore we have to stick a bit to the serif idea, which means we could either find a typeface that looks like it, or design one ourselves. Illustrator is great program to use, or in other words, we have to start experimenting with typefaces now.

Cd Packaging

Besides a music promo video we had to chose two other options. One of the options includes a cover for the release of the video as a part of a digipak (CD/DVD Package). We decides to design a CD cover

Existing Examples

Because Alicia is doing Graphic Design we didn't want to do something that was too easy, yet too difficult. We still have to do research into a magazine advertisement so we create our own one as it is the other option we have chosen. Therefore we first looked at templates, deciding which one would be best to design. The Single CD Quicksleeve is used for a lot for singles, which we are creating. On the other hand, Alicia found this type of template a bit too simple. A Double CD Wallet is useless as we only have got one CD. The Tri-fold CD Wallet would be perfect if we had a lot of graphical images to include, but we haven't. This means that the Single CD Wallet is the best option in our case. We can insert the CD perfectly, making the outside and inside look stylish at the same time without overdoing the graphics.

This image is copied from the internet, Click Here to go to the website.

These CD covers are all made out of cardboard, even though some CD covers are made out of plastic. Plastic takes a lot of space and we want to create something that is effective and easy to store. Illustrator is a very good program to use to create and design packaging. Besides illustrations you can also use the Grid to help designing the cover. Alicia re-designed this wallet in Illustrator, printed it out, and made sure it fitted perfectly. 'The worst thing you can do is do research into packaging design, illustrate images and photo's, make sure everything is laid-out perfectly and then find out that the measurements were wrong when you print it out and try to fold it together'.

This image is the cover of one of David Guetta's CD Covers called PopLife. This is a very good example because David Guetta is seen to have the same music genre as Justice. If you look on google - images - you can see that this artist mainly uses his own portrait to fill up the cover Click Here. This makes it easier for the audience to recognise David Guetta himself straight away. They don't have to search for the artists name on the cover. The cover of PopLife uses dark and outstanding colours; black, white, red and pink. Black and white aren't really colours, black is 'no colour' and white are 'all colours', but they are the complete opposite of each other. Pink and red do come quite near each other. Some might say pink is a softer colour of red. Because the background is so dark, Guetta stands out because he is wearing a white shirt. The use of light is quite special as well, is represents the night life; referring back that this kind of music is mainly played in nightclubs.

This is the cover of The Prodigy which is called Music for the Jilted Generation. The Prodigy shares the same music genre as Justice, but they tend to be more sinister; their looks and their kind of music. The CD Cover suggests this sinisterly aspect as well as it shows a head (probably) having troubles with something as it seems to be screaming. The colours used are black and white, this can be seen as elegant, depending on the way it is used. This cover suggests that is used in a sinister way, which suits the artist.

These covers show that the covers are designed to suite the artists. This puts extra pressure on the outcome of our own CD cover as we need to find something that suits Justice. We don't know them in person so we don't know anything about their characters or the way they handle things. This means that we won't be able to create something personal, but we can give our own personal touch to it as we make our OWN music video to it. It therefore needs to be a mixture of our knowledge about Justice and our own characters that we put in the music video.

Schedule

We are planning to start filming on a Monday after school. After school should be the best time as the scenes are mostly set at school and everyone is already at school thus available. Some people are boarders and stay over during weekdays but some people need to take the bus home, which leaves at 17:30. School ends 15.35, this means we have got about an hour and 45 minutes to film each days. This is very limited but it means we have to plan everything very well and should hold on to that schedule.

Monday.

15.35 School ends

15.45 Meet up in the gym

15.50 Show everyone where to sit/stand etc.

16.00 Start filming:

This should take about 15 minutes; taking into account things can go wrong and need to be re-filmed: Full body shot: Thin man walks through the doors of the gym and sees a (medium shot/eye level) couple of muscular guys and (close up) has a frightened looks on his face.

This should take about 15 minutes as well. Again taking into account things can go wrong and need to be re-filmed: (over-the-shoulder shot) He signs himself up for a membership (close up of him holding pen and writing). He sees a couple of names (extreme close-up of names) on the list and later on meets these people in a dancing class (extreme long shot showing people dancing in gym/high angle)

This should take about 5 minutes: (Close-up)Several people of all ages are shown, some with acne, glasses etc.

This should take about 15 minutes: (Full body shot/low angle) Dance class is doing their routine and claps to the music. Thin man can’t keep up with the pace and claps at the wrong time.

This should take about 10 minutes: (long shot develops into medium shot/eye level) When thin man tries to chat up one of the girls they are just looking at him as if they are disgusted and walk off.

After this all we have got 15 minutes left. We don’t want to plan anything for this time just so we can play with it a bit. We might need those extra 15 minutes to re-film stuff or do things differently (taking shots from different angles or changing shots slightly).

Actors needed for these shots:

Thin man:

Paris Mudan

Muscular men:

Ollie Stokes

Harry Curtis

Tobias Redman

Members in the dance class:

Rhianna Sheridan

Molly Botelho

Charlie

Elisabeth Harris

Ria Smith

(Paris Included)

Pretty Girls:

Ria Smith

Hannah Stout

Filming

Equipment:

When filming our music video we will be using two cameras, one for Alicia and Matt. This will allow us to capture the same clip from two different angles, which will save time while shooting and will help us with jumping from shot to shot during editing. The cameras we will be using are Sony HD Cameras which are very good quality which will make our music videos that much more impressive.

We shall also be using a tripod to hold the camera steady whilst filming. This should make our video seem much more professional and not look like it was shot by amateurs. We shall also be using a dolly to help us film tracking shots, firstly to follow the main characters and to show scenes that are appropriate to the lyrics. He may also be using a crane so that we can see some high angle shots of the gym and sports hall where we we will be filming. This is used to show how overwhelming the prospect that using the gym is to our main character.

Mise-en-scene

As can be seen in the photo's we have taken previously we are going to use several gym elements: equipment.

Clothing will be different for every single setting. In the gym it is obvious that the characters are required to wear sporty clothing, maybe even brand clothes, such as Puma, Donnay, Adidas etc. Sporty clothes are clothes that are very comfortable to wear and easy to move in. Most of the time they are made out of stretchy fabrics.

Donnay, Puma and Adidas.

The house party requires the characters to wear pretty clothes. Clothes you would wear to a party literally. The girls can wear dresses or pretty tops, and the men can wear eye-catching t-shirts and trousers. Make-up and hair are essential, everything has to look good. The gym mostly as seen as a place where it doesn't matter what you look like, this makes it easier to emphasis the different between a gym and a house party because we can easily change and add make-up and hairstyles.

The lighting for these settings will be different as well. People will work out during the day so it is obvious that there will be a natural light. Parties are mainly thrown during the evening/night when it is dark. It stands for itself that the setting has to be dark, or at least filmed in the evening when it is darker.

Exisiting Video Analysis

In order to make our own music video of "DVNO" by Justice we were required to look at some of their existing videos. These two videos are very different from one another and this will help provide us with ideas of what to use in our videos.



Shot Type:

In this video many shot types are used. These shots are usually mid shots showing a vast group of people of close ups showing action that matches the music, such as the mock fighting. This gives the music video an edge that matches the music in the video and the video's theme itself.

Editing:

The song title "Stress" is accurately portrayed in this video through the use of violence with violent sounding music. A variety of take length is also used in this video which the video can contrast well against each other, and the video is editied to show only what the producer wants you to see.

Angle:

The angles that are used also help to show violence. We are usually looking up at the men in leather jackets which helps to show them as authorative and in power. Also the camera is always focusing on the gang members and the reactions they crete to others. This shows the group to be in control and much more menacing.

Mise-en-scene:

The video is set in the streets of France where the band Justice come from. The gang in the video move from public areas to abandoned The album which the song comes, "Cross", emblum is on the back of the leather jackets that are worn by many members of what seems to be a gang in the video. The yellow of the cross is the prominent colour imitating the album cover. This is peculiar because the cross symbolizes religion which discourages violence. The gang on the other hand are violent towards many of the people they meet whilst walking around the town or city that they are in. This represents the gang as more organised and threatening. This conforms to the stereotype of gang culture in youths. However the gang is without women in it at all, which conforms to the stereotype of women not being evolved in gang activity. All people in the gang are young, in the age demographic of 15-24. this helps to reinforce the stereotype of young people as gang members with a gang culture. The lighting in the music video is usually quite bright as most of the clips are shot outside, however sometimes when the camera is used inside the lighting is darker. This can help to create a feeling of foreboding amoung a viewer as they may be worried about what the gang are going to do next.

Sound:

In this song there is no singing, only sound which is completely different to the songs that we have heard from Justice so far. The video compliments this by having digetic sound over the song in parts of the video which makes the video seem more realistic.