The Brief
Client: The Brand GH
Industry: Jewellery and fashion
Target audience: Fashion-conscious women aged 25-45, interested in African-inspired designs and products.
Design objective: To create a unique and memorable logo that reflects the brand’s Ghanaian roots and inspires confidence and style in its target audience.
Key elements to include:
- Ghanaian influence: the logo should incorporate design elements that represent the Ghanaian culture, such as traditional patterns, symbols or colours. These elements should be incorporated in a modern, simple way.
- Brand name: the full brand name, The Brand GH, should be prominently displayed in the logo design.
- Colour palette: select a colour palette that reflects the brand’s values of elegance and sophistication, while also evoking the warm and vibrant colours of Ghana.
- Font selection: select a font that is modern and easy to read, but personal and bold.
- Symbol/icon: create a unique icon or symbol that represents the brand and can be used as a stand-alone element for brand recognition.
Mandatory elements:
- The brand name: The Brand GH
- A design element that reflects Ghanaian culture and heritage
Deliverables:
- A high-resolution vector file in Adobe Illustrator or EPS format.
- A set of logo variations for use across different media, including color and black and white versions.
- A style guide document that outlines color palette, font selection, and guidelines for logo usage.
Design notes: The client has requested a logo that conveys the brand’s unique and stylish identity, while also incorporating elements that represent Ghanaian culture and heritage. Please use clean and modern design principles to create a logo that is timeless, memorable and versatile. The logo should be legible and scalable for use across different media and sizes. Please avoid using cliché or generic design elements that are commonly associated with African-inspired brands.
Draft Concepts
After generating a few variations of logos, the client selected the route that they wanted to go down, by choosing a design that encapsulated Afro / African beauty while also using text that would powerfully proclaim the brand name.
The logo would be used on online boutiques such as Etsy, and so it had to be impactful and effective at a smaller size, hence the size of the main initials “GH” and the contrasting shade of white to the background Pan-African colours.
Logo Design
Iconography
The icon was a tricky task to complete, since after going through concepts, the client decided that the option that they wanted to go for, was one that didn’t have any Ghana specific symbols, other than the actual text ‘GH’ which is well known within the black African Caribbean community as standing for Ghana.
In order to combat this, I utilised the well known black star design, taken from the flag of Ghana, and used it as a backdrop for the black beauty icon. The client could now have the option to utilise the circular based design in places where their brand would be displayed on a smaller scale, and the star logo could be utilised in places where it would be displayed at larger sizes.
For example, one design for Social media profile pictures, another for the actual website icon. The client was happy with this variation, as both designs were visually still linked.
Colours
Colour wise, the final logo argues the question, why can’t the pan African colours of red, gold and green also be utilised to be a part of an elegant design. Using it in conjunction with the striking brand icon, brings an overall feel of African beauty and elegance.
Fonts
In order to meet the feeling of the brief, I used a font called Billy Ohio for the main GH font, which makes it feel bold, personal and strong. For the font for the brand I decided to use a bold sans serif font, which gives a feeling of modern simplicity.
MicahMan Design 