Vagabond - Self Summer brief

I decided to make a small brief for myself during the summer. Short and sweet I decided that, should one day I be lucky enough to run my own graphic design company, what would I call it. It is a question that had been knocking around in my head for a while, so for a bit of fun I sat down one day and came up with this:


It is hard to think of a name that encompasses all aspects of design and to call it simply James Roberts Design Studio would be a bit crap to say the least. I took the name "Vagabond" from a Bob Dylan track I was listening to on my i-pod whilst running. I came home and looked up the meaning of the word. It derives from the Latin word 'vagari' which means to wander. Also, "leading a carefree life" "having no settled home". I liked the sound of the word and also the meaning. It has derogatory connotations too, mostly western associations with tramps.

So, I decided to call my imaginary company "Vagabond". I wanted to make a fresh logo design, that was simple and using mainly typography. I chose the type face Myriad as I liked the way the V was so similar to an upside down A in shape and it also had a modern feel to it, essential for a modern design company! Just the type on it's own wasn't enough though, so I decided to knock the bar out from the cross section of the two A's which made them look even more like the V and V, A and N all looked a little like arrows pointing in different directions. I then reversed the N so that it appeared backwards to give it a quirkier feel but still kept its legibility.

I then put a grey gradient colour on it as I thought this would be easy to reproduce for letter heads, business cards etc and under the word Vagabond I wrote the words that I would like my company to transmit, "Fresh" "Design" and "Ideas" I chose to put this in orange to give some bright and fresh feel to the graphic, also the associations of orange are summer, sun and the fruit itself, with happy and fun being amongst its connotations.

To bring the design together, i drew a line underneath and another breaking eitherside of the three key words.

I am quite pleased how it turned out. It is exactly what I was looking for, although when I look at it now I see the design linked more closely to a surfing/clothing brand than a design company...maybe I'm in the wrong business! I realised shortly after completing it that there is a band by the same name currently on the play list of Radio 2, so now it looks like the most unoriginal name for a design company. I might as well have called it "Oasis Design"!