"Melophobia" band logo

Another evaluation I've been meaning to post for a while.  As I'm aspiring to be a 2D generalist I've been really trying to up my graphic design skills this semester.  After watching a few Digital Tutors videos and reading a couple graphic design books I took on the challenge of designing a logo for my super talented brother's band "Melophobia."

I sent the band a sheet of different band logos I found visually striking and asked them to pick out their favourite designs so I could get a feel for the kind of logo they were after.  After this I sketched out a few ideas.  At this point I was really keen to try out a hand-drawn logo style.

My hand drawn typography skills are pretty much non existent so this was quite a challenge.  I based most of these on already existent typefaces which lead to some pretty boring designs.  I need to be more adventurous in future.  However I first need to learn more rules about hand drawn typography so more research must be done. 

I quite like the design on the second bottom to the right.  I think it has an interesting "natural" look to it.  That one was drawn in Indian ink using an old mascara brush.  I was inspired by the artist Boneface after reading this interview with Digital Arts about how he tackled designing the typography for the latest Queens of the Stone Age album.

 The above design is the one the band decided they liked the best.  However after producing the above more polished version, I knew I could do better.  The design doesn't flow the way it should - The "M" and "A" should be more symmetrical to keep the design balanced and the spacing of the letters over all is too awkward, with too many tails jutting out and leaving awkward gaps.

My solution was to start over completely.  Inspired by a Digital Tutorials video I watched, my new approach was to give the band a list of (royalty free) fonts for them to choose from. 

They chose 15 (also my favourite) for its "vintage" quality.  I took the typeface example and drew over it in Photoshop to join the letters together and create a better "flow."

 I then took the sketch PSD file in to Illustrator and outlined and filled it using the pen tool.

These were the final results I gave to the band.  The spacing is still off in places, for instance the "h" and "o" should be closer together, as should the "l" and "o."  I feel like the tail of the "p", "a" and heads of the "h" and "b" should be smoother.  The "o"s also lack consistency.   However  over all I don't feel like it's too bad for my first logo design in Illustrator.   

You can listen to their first single (and see my logo design in action) here.