NCCC, part 1: awesome design brief

My former coworker Rusty Talbot left the web industry recently to pursue a dream – opening a climbing gym in the beautiful hills of New Hampshire. He came to me after his artist was unable to complete the branding project to see if I could take it over. Rusty sent me one of the best, detailed briefs I’ve ever received from a client:

The logo files from the former designer: (The one on the left was the latest iteration)

What I want to evoke:

This is an indoor climbing gym but I wanted to connect with some visual imagery that reflects the location – northern New Hampshire. This is why we included the distant mountains and trees and so forth in the lower right corner

I want to make clear that this is about rock climbing – so that’s why we have the silhouette of the climber on a steep rock face

If possible, it would be cool to evoke an image related to the gym itself. I don’t think that the logo we were working with actually did this, but I’m attaching a photo showing a small part of the gym as it is being built. I think it is a cool looking feature like the prow of a ship. If you can think of a cool way to incorporate something that evokes this look into the logo, that could be really excellent

What I think of the current elements in the logo:

I really like what’s in the lower right corner:

The snowy mountains and the trees.

If you look closely you’ll even see a version of the NH state symbol – the “old man of the mountain” that was part of a local cliff until it collapsed in 2003 (it’s still the state symbol even though it doesn’t exist in nature anymore, however!).

The other side of the mountain that has the old man on it has a ski area, so we represented that with the little ski slope curving down the mountain on the right.

I think that the climber and the overhanging wall is ok – and it is nicely evocative of rock climbing in a gym

Please note that I’m not that attached to the climber or his/her body position. It’s not as crisp as I think I’d like it to ideally look.

Also, I’m not super attached to the way the cliff face looks. It sort of looks like a blob. As noted above, I’d be more psyched to evoke an element of my gym like the prow in the attached picture

We toyed with different shapes and sort of honed in on a circular design.

If it wasn’t an attached circle, it looked like a monster eating a climber

If it was an oval it looked a lot like an eye (especially if the cliff face was a bit steeper and more like a horizontal roof)

The shape of the cliff in the larger file was sort of blah so we were moving toward a cleaner circle-style. She hadn’t gotten around to cleaning up the cliff to make it flow smoothly into the circle, however.

We toyed with including the wording or lettering in the logo and it didn’t feel like it worked

We tried both w letters in the cliff like in the larger file as well as with the words going around it in a circle (“North Country” on top, “Climbing Center” on the bottom)

I think that I’ll just want to have the words “North Country Climbing Center” next to the logo or below it or not all depending on the context.

Colors

I’d like to include color in my brand – but I don’t know how to incorporate colors in the logo (if at all)

The walls are going to be a mix of deep blue, brick red, and off white (it’ll actually be light granite). We need to be careful to keep this from looking like an American flag, however!

Uses – what I plan to use the logo for:

Signage

An interior sign above the main entrance / desk

Maybe painted on one of the walls if it makes sense…

One big sign out in front of the building (this is the only expensive, hard to change thing that I’ll use the logo for)

Website

Facebook page

Business cards

“coming soon” promotional posters

Brochures

Tee shirts

Hats

Note that I’m using the catch-phrase of “live free and climb” (a play on the NH motto of “live free or die”).

Thank you so much for being willing to assist with this. While I do like the direction [former designer] was going in, I’m totally open to your awesome creative ideas.

Rusty was detailed and organized in sharing his thoughts about the existing logo design and what he wanted.

Bulleted lists are always helpful to break things down!
Rusty gave me some bigger picture branding requirements, explaining his desire to integrate “New Hampshire” and “rock climbing” into the logo.
He was extremely detailed with what he liked and didn’t like about the logo, and explained their design process so that I wouldn’t have to reinvent the wheel by trying things that didn’t work the first time around
He included all the potential uses that he would need for the logo, which helped to give me an idea of the level of detail (or simplification) that might be needed
And of course, he implied that my ideas would be “awesome” and “creative.” Flattery never hurts!

Next: I start sketching.