Sunpiper Sunscreen Process

Brand Story

For this project, we were told to create a logo for a healthcare brand of our choosing. So I began to think about what healthcare brand I would personally use.

As someone who walks outside frequently in the hot Texas sun, I realized that I should really start wearing sunscreen daily- however, the only thing stopping me from doing so was the scent of sunscreen. I most definitely did not want to show up to all my classes smelling like sunscreen, an overpowering smell mostly associated with going to the beach or the pool. However, I did want to protect my skin from the sun’s harmful rays.

Thus, my idea of an odorless sunscreen was born. I wanted to create a casual sunscreen that did not have that annoying sunscreen smell. I wanted my sunscreen to be seen as something that can be applied normally, such as regular everyday lotion.

I wanted my brand personality to be

Casual
Friendly
Inclusive
Fresh
Simple
Fun
Informative
Healthy

And I wanted my audience to be all genders 10+

So I had my brand, but now I had to think of a logo.

Sketching Ideas

made some sketches for a logo that could work for my casual sunscreen brand. A lot of them involved sun imagery so the brand could be identified as a sunscreen brand. As for all the birds- well, I just really like birds.

We did some crit in class where our peers could check off the designs they liked best out of our sketches. Afterwards, I highlighted my favorites with a pink star.

These two were the most popular out of all the designs, but I ultimately decided to move forward with the design on the right.

The design on the left read too much as “beachy”, which is what I wanted to stray away from. Along with that, the design was too child-like and cartoony, which may draw away my older audience (My audience should be 10+).

I then created 10 more iterations of my final logo design.

Upon further review, my peers seemed to like these 3 designs the most, but I wound up choosing the last two designs to move forward with (again, due to the design on the left most likely appealing too much to a younger audience)

Digital Rough Drafts

Before getting started on looking for fonts, I realized I had to decide on a name for my odorless sunscreen brand. I took inspiration from my logo design- a sandpiper with a sun behind it. I combined the two words and ended up with Sunpiper Sunscreen

After looking through collections of fonts for my logo, I was stuck between Abril Display:

and Ador Hairline:

After some review from my peers I decided on using Abril Display for my wordmark logo.

I had a lot of iterations of these two designs. I really couldn’t figure out what I liked most!

I got some more crit from my peers and narrowed down my options into two designs:

Coloring

Still being stuck between these two different designs, I decided to move on to the color pallet of my logo in hopes that it would help me choose a final design.

I decided on this logo as my final logo and this color pallet as my final color pallet:

The offset of the colors on my final design had at first been a mistake when I was designing the logo with the colors, but I ended up liking the way it looked in the end.

I decided on these final colors because they are calming and soft, matching the nature of the brand.

Final Logo Design

Thus, my logo design was done!

Black and White logo

Colored Logo

Mock-Ups

Sunscreen lotion bottle

Sunscreen stick

Testing & feedback

After presenting my logo design to my Images in Communication class, I got a lot of positive feedback. There was only crit on a couple of technical things about my logo- such as overlapping stroke lines, but that was about it.

My peers and professor had felt that my design was successful in being a logo for a sunscreen brand- so I’m proud of what I created!

Lessons and opportunities

I’m glad I got to dabble a bit more in the graphic design world this way. I had no idea designing a brand logo could be this much work. I’m proud of the finished outcome and I feel as though my illustrator skills as well as my graphic design skills have really improved by doing this project.

I had a lot of fun, and it was really rewarding seeing the final logo design on product mock-ups at the end! It really feels as though I created a real logo for a real brand.

ELIZABETH BANDA