Michael Rice

Colour is pretty important in various ways. Determining how people feel, determining meanings and more related to this, creating something recognisable. For corporate individuals this is important for their brand as it can create a recognisable image for their customers, something that people will see and be like “oh yeah, it’s them”. Different colours have different meanings, for example, see below at a lovely chart:

For my rebranding, I’m going to try and focus on using colours within the widths of Blue and Red due to various reasons. Firstly, red and blue are the colours of the Parisian flag and this just so happens to be where the company is emerging from. Secondly, both colours have rather strong connotations including trust, faith and power for blue and love, energy and passion for red which I feel are all things that need to be put into a business in order for it to be successful.

With most barber shop logos and branding I’ve noticed that black and white is a common palette choice and it has created an almost hipster like style for similar barber shops, making this the go to look and style. Yes it appears attractive and matches the ‘Gentlemen’ theme that they all collectively represent but to me it seems boring for them all to have similar palettes and logos so to create a new, colourfully representative logo would be refreshing and unique.

Below I’ve been experimenting with different colour palettes. Ideas that I would consider for the logo:

I like the mix in pastel colours and bold colours (mainly between the top and bottom palettes). Having the yellow and green colours just adds something extra that can be used for small pieces of the branding or I might not even use them, furthermore showcasing a beautiful logo with limited colours.

Updates soon.

This guy right here makes some good stuff. The one that’s caught my attention is his design for a Barber Shop. 

http://www.mandokreativedesign.com

I really like the design on the guy in the middle, I think I might try and experiment with this style in the near future as I near the designing stage of the brief.
Mando Kreative is a designer who specialises in a good few things but has done a lot of work with logos. His design for the Handsome Devil Barbershop is brilliant as it looks and feels different to the average barber shop look with most of them looking hand drawn and looking very similar to each.
With his logo design it sticks to a very specific colour palette, which, in itself stands out from other logos being that they most commonly only feature blacks and whites.
This style of logo design is potentially something that i’d be interested in exploring.

Seeing as the Barber shop within the brief is of a Parisian decent, I wanted to research and explore the culture found within Paris.
So the Parisian’s are friendly, but only upon being greeted, which is essential in the Barber industry because what’s worse that having a silent hair cut. Awkward. Right? So to incorporate a feeling of politeness and a sense of greeting within the logo or colour palette is essential.
They walk a lot. It only takes 2 hours to get from the north end to the south end of Paris. Not sure what I’ll do with this information.

During the summer, people within Paris like to sit outside and enjoy the air instead of being cooped up inside and i suppose this is like all of us but in Paris it’s quite a big deal, so incorporating a sense of freedom and exposure into the brand identity might be essential and it might link in nicely with the idea of being welcomed upon the first meeting.

Fashion is MASSIVE in Paris. It’s a large piece of the place so looking good is essential so maybe having good looks incorporated into the logo would be appealing as everyone likes to look good and coming from Paris is like having a huge upper hand when it comes to fashion. The people in Paris never dress less than business casual so bringing this sense of style to the likes of the UK would be a nice addition to the brand.

And finally, the Eiffel Tower. Duh. But is this something that’s maybe a bit too cliché? I’ve found about incorporating it onto the flag idea that’s seen within a post a few back but is it too cliché or would be seen as something unique and welcoming to the new audience?

So branding is, obviously, highly important for any company whether it be for Farms or Stationary shops, everything needs an identity and I’ve already focused some attention on the logos for certain Barbers so that I can get an idea about that area but ultimately you have to see the bigger picture and explore what is common within brand identity.

I’ve started looking at different packages that various companies which are not necessarily involved in grooming but feature a unique look into design and identity. http://blog.printrunner.com/2012/09/50-inspiring-examples-of-corporate-identity-and-branding/
Below are some examples that I stumbled across.

Looking at all of these shows that each company has a unique taste within design and each one is catered for a specific audience. Looking at these now it’s possible to incorporate the colour palettes and editing techniques within a logo for the Barber’s company.

With these each one works with a specific colour palette, specialising in a colour that they may be known for, therefore using it would make them recognisable. Other companies may be establishing a new colour palette as a form of rebranding, therefore allowing them to attract to new audiences, etc.

These brands and designs that are used within them form the identity, the colours, fonts and images are at the forefront which allows the audience to understand what they are buying into and it gives a certain insight as to whether the company is professional or not.
With my branding, I’ll be looking into a bright colour palette, something that would stand out against the competition which would help seeing as though the company is coming from a different part of the world.

So I’ve just had an idea and it revolves around the proposed heritage of the Barbers. Supposedly from Paris and wanting to expand over see’s, what if the logo or theme could be flags. My idea is to take a similar image to that the one taken in 1945 when the U.S. Marine’s placed the flag down.

The idea would be to replace the American flag with a French or even a Parisian flag (The French would be more recognisable though) and have this over the name and maybe a set of stereotypical barber tools.
I’ll create a sketch in the coming days!