I’ve been a freelance graphic designer and UX specialist for over a decade. As the business grew over the years, I thought it the right time to register a company and do some proper branding for myself. The branding needed to reflect my design sensibilities, but also my interests.
I like sci-fi a lot, but I find the visuals of 1950s and 1960s sci-fi the most appealing. I’m also very fond of Art Deco design and architecture. It thus made sense to combine the two. Moreover, my branding needed to tell a definite story about my company. I wanted the brand to elicit wonder, discovery, and excitement, while still evoking a corporate ambience. It also needs to imbue hope for the future, which is what 50s sci-fi frequently did.
Firstly, I had to create a font that would suit the abovementioned look and feel. A retro nixie clock served as inspiration for the font. I found the rounded numbers attractive, while they simultaneously resembled moons and planets.
Nixie clock photo by ANIRUDH on Unsplash
Using this circular motif, I set about creating my own font. I drew circles in Illustrator, halved and quartered them, or overlapped them to create individual letters. Kerning and spacing were carefully considered and the font started to take shape.
Isolated Moonlander One font
With the font and the lettering of the logo done, I needed my sci-fi and Art Deco graphics. I decided on a rocket ship, but the rocket ship had to work well with my font, while resembling something astronauts would’ve potentially had on their jackets in the 1950s. Additionally, I wanted the number one to appear on the rocket. I made various rough sketches of rockets on a piece of paper and then redrew the one I liked most in Illustrator.
The first digital rendering of the rocket graphic
After overlaying the font over the rocket I noticed the ‘n’ of “one” fit perfectly over my rocket’s window. The problem was that this caused a potential readability issue where the overlap between the text and the image could make it seem like an ‘o’ and not an ‘n’. This meant I had to redraw the window to subtly reinforce the “n” shape (see comparison below).
Here we can clearly see the readability issue.
Next, I developed a colour scheme for the branding. I incorporated the hot amber glow of the nixie clock elements into my design. Using a colour wheel I chose a complimentary teal as my second colour. The amber I used for the numbering on the rocket, while the teal was used everywhere else. Below you can also see a few more of the letters of the font I created.
The Moonlander One moodboard
Finally, I needed to incorporate some Art Deco linework into my design. I used the aforementioned amber colour for this and created some dividers for my website as well as an extra graphic to combine with my rocket ship icon. The repetition of these lines function as a unifying element between the pages, the branding, and the content, as you can see on this very page.
This was a fun exercise in branding and I am pleased with the end result. I was able to incorporate all of my initial ideas while creating a brand that really tells a story, which is what my business is all about. If you want to hire me to do something similar for you, please reach out to me here.
