CIT College Radio - Pictogram/Logo Planning and Completion

Pictogram

In my creative journal, I sketched out a few ideas for the radio pictogram. Here's a photo of what I have done:

My favourite one so far is probably the the one with microphone. It's based off the device in the picture below that are used in radio station booths. The "on (the) air" is also on my moodboard so it links quite nicely to that as well as tying to the radio booth theme.

However, it doesn't exactly convey what I expressed in my moodboard. The adjectives I chose at first were "ENTERTAINING" and "PRACTICAL", which did slightly change throughout the process of making the moodboard. Instead of "practical", I think "EXCITING" suits what I am trying to express better. The images I sketched in my creative journal didn't match my adjectives and they weren't exactly what I was looking for.

So I decided to sketch more things associated with radio. One that really stuck with me is a radio tower idea:

 I sketched the idea in my layout pad and here are some images of what I did:

I love the waves around the top of the radio tower as they bring a lot of life to the image. 

I really like both the 2D and 3D images so I'm not quite sure which I'll use yet in the finished pictogram. 

I couldn't decide which radio tower I liked more so I started on the type to see which version of the radio tower incorporated into the complete logo better.

Type

I decided to modify the Helvetica font that as in my moodboard as I felt it wasn't exciting enough for the radio station logo. I began my research by thinking of type ideas that are easy to read, eye-catching and exciting.

Neon is the first thing that came to mind - most likely influenced by the "on air" sign idea above.

I began drawing the pictogram along with the neon sign

 I also began looking up ideas of neon signs to improve the quick sketches I made. 

Here are two examples I found:

Although they look good, it's near impossible to incorporate neon into a logo without it looking too gaudy.

I decided to scrap the neon idea and start again with the type. I began researching fonts further and the came across this font which immediately caught my eye:

It is both fun but professional at the same time, perfect for a college! It is also the type of font that is associated with college a lot. 

I sketched it out to see what it looked like:

It seemed a bit bland so I added an outline which defitnely spruces it up a bit and makes the font fit in well with my adjectives "exciting" and "entertaining".

I wasn't completely happy with the layout of my font before with the words at the side so I tried out different versions:

But as you can see with the crosses and tick, the one I liked the most was the last one with the words circling the top of the radio tower. The placement made it more eye-catching and it takes up less space horizontally. 

Pictogram Continued

With the font I choose, I decided that the 2D pictogram with the explosion design on top tied in best. The sun rays would just obstruct the font and it would look strange. 

I really like the look of the explosion as it fits with my adjectives choice very well. I also decided to add in more detail to the explosion and radio tower, which I would be colouring in Illustrator.

Colour Palette 

I've decided to stick with the red, blue, white theme that was in my moodboard. I feel they are the best colours to represent CIT, which also being eye-catching and entertaining.

Result

These are the 3 pages I used for my rough work in order. The close ups of these are shown above and below.

I decided to combine everything together and see how the logo looked. This is the final sketch result of both the "CIT RADIO" and "CITRADIO.ie" logos:

I am very happy with what I came up with as they scream both "exciting" and "entertaining", while also looking educational, thanks to the font choice!

This is the final look after scanning and vectorising them in Illustrator:

I added some more support beams to make the radio tower look less empty and relied heavily on the moodboard colours of blue (#29339C), red (#CE0019, middle circle = #FF0000) and white (#FFFFFF) colour scheme to represent CIT. I figured the maroon-red in the CIT logo wasn't energetic enough for the logo so I went with brighter colours.

The font is called "Princetown LET" from fontpalace.com

And those are the finished logos! :)