After looking through various examples of Falcon and Dragon illustrations, I wanted to start experimenting with my own style. I first decided to draw an example of each creature in my own illustrational style, using simple bold lines and using dot work to add shape and to show highlights and shadows.
I really like these illustrations, and I think they work well as standalone designs, as well as potentially strong logos. I think they suit the style and I think the positions of the creatures appear strong and fairly simple. After finishing the illustrations I scanned them in and edited them slightly in Photoshop, boosting the contrast and desaturating it to make the blacks nice and dark, and to remove the off white colour from the paper. I also added in some text, using the same simple, bold typeface that I chose to use for the SpaceX logo. I think this works well with the illustrations, and it fits nicely inside the open spaces that I positioned it in. I feel the text and the illustrations compliment each other, and they work to create a strong illustration in my opinion.
After editing the logos and adding the typography, I decided to try mocking them up onto images of the spacecrafts, to see how they would look in reality. I found that, although they are strong illustrations at the original size, when I shrunk them to fit onto the space crafts, they lost their impact and were immediately weaker as designs. I also think that the lack of colour also helped the logo to get lost on the rocket; the original logos were bright, solid colours and stood out because of it, however my illustrations are simple, black line drawings and so I don’t think they stand out and have the same impact as before.
My next step was to try and strengthen my designs, as when painted onto the side of the space crafts I want them to be as strong and have as much impact as possible. As one method to try and do this, returned to the ideas I was having with my SpaceX logo, and experimented with using shapes to border my illustration. I felt that the most successful shape to work with my illustration would be a circle, and so I added one to my Falcon to try it. Looking back at my 1950’s research and logos of the time, I liked the idea of having the Falcon coming out of the circle, extending past the border. Whilst I think it was a potentially good idea, I think my illustration, whilst strong on its own, is possible too detailed to work as a logo. I could still potentially use it as an illustration alongside my work, but I think the detail starts to create problems when it is scaled down and added to other things, and so I think I need to simplify my design.
As a first step to simplifying my logo, I used Illustrator to trace over my Falcon with the pen tool, creating smooth, simple lines to create a simple outline without any shading or added detail. Immediately, this has become a simpler, much more minimal design; and although I feel this would scale up and down a lot easier now, I think it still needs simplifying further, and I think the actual shape of the Falcon and the Dragon perhaps need to change in order to be successful. Therefore I will continue to experiment with this design, now pairing it back as much as I can to create a minimal logo. I think this will be much more successful for what it needs to be, keeping its strong nature at any size and in any setting, where it was lost with original illustration.
SMITH 