Highland Marketing Identity
As Creative Director at Highland Marketing, one of my responsibilities involved the creation and management of the company's overall visual identity. This includes the design of the current company logo, as well as related collateral such as business cards and letterhead.
A mockup of the Highland Marketing logo and simple business cards. Mockup template by GraphicBurger.
When I first started at Highland in 2006, one of the first projects that I worked on was designing a new logo. I had just completed my Master's in English Literature and had very little design experience. As a result, the design I created had a number of issues.
The original Highland Marketing logo that I designed in 2006
The biggest issue was the fact that the logo—specifically the crest portion—was far too detailed. The thistle and the three words all head meaning, but as I gained more experience, I came to understand that they all added too much to the visual clutter of the design. I was never particularly satisfied with the typeface either, which was set in Bremen.
Fortunately, in 2013 I had the opportunity to revisit the logo and give it a refreshed look. We considered a number of different concepts, but decided not to deviate too far from the previous version.
The current, revised Highland Marketing logo, designed in 2012
Ultimately, I chose to keep the crest, but in a drastically simplified fashion. I reduced the overall size of the four arms, while removing the unnecessary ridging effect. I then abandoned the three words and exchanged the thistle for a simple play on the traditional celtic knot.
I also completely changed the typeface. In an effort to keep with the celtic theme, I selected Livingstone as the base typeface, then applied some level of customization to almost each letter.