Idiosyncratic: the story of a logo

John Spencer has dedicated his professional life to creating visual platforms, most often for non profits such as WSPA, the World Society for the Protection of Animals, and Survival, the movement for tribal peoples. He's a fantastic designer and the founder of Off the top of my head. As John puts it "I invent names, make marks, create brands and dream up campaigns. Off the Top of My Head waves the flag for instinct and imagination. It's about intuitive, off-the-top-of-the-head thinking and the sheer joy and excitement of doing things that haven't been done before."

Nine versions of the ministract logo

We first met almost nine years ago when I invited Spencer du Bois to create a new visual identity for the UK's Royal Academy of Engineering. At the time, they had a logo that spoke only to those amongst their membership that you might categorise as the pale, male and stale rather than to the young women and men who needed to be inspired to study engineering. John's job was to come up with something that everybody would love. Half way through the process a summons came from, of all places, Buckingham Palace. The Duke of Edinburgh was (and still is) the Academy's founding patron and took an enormous interest in everything they did. He'd heard something was afoot and wanted to know what we were up to... It was an unforgettable experience - wandering up to the Palace, past the tourists, through the gates and in through a side entrance and up to his private rooms. I knew for sure it was a special occasion when John turned up wearing a tie! The session with the Duke was fascinating (and, trust me, there's way more to him than media coverage would suggest) but it left us with a couple of issues so John and I decamped to The Albert pub on Victoria Street afterwards to plan our next steps.

Anyway, that's another story so I'll get back to the point of this one: how John designed the new Ministract logo...

A while ago he and I were solving the problems of the world over a bottle of red wine when I mentioned I wanted a logo for Ministract. John said he was up for it and that he'd call me with some ideas. We met again a few weeks later (with our old friend Mr Red Wine, of course) and John unveiled his proposal, Inside the box. I was blown away by what he'd come up with.

Front cover of ministract logo design proposal called 'Inside the box'

To get his inspiration, he'd worked his way through all my pictures on Flickr (there's over a thousand of the things) and concluded that any logo had to be square, colourful, based on my photographs, ministract in style and, more than anything else, it had to be idiosyncratic.

One of the rejected designs for the ministract logo

First, he showed me an option ("well, not really an option - you're not allowed to choose it") that was simply the word plus a picture...

He tried another approach - combining the word within the images and playing on what John thought was a Bauhaus element in some of the photographs... "Don't bother liking it - you can't choose - it's not idiosyncratic enough. More wine, please".

The next page of the presentation was titled “Best idea” (just in case I didn't get the hint) and was followed by several versions of the word Ministract, each one slightly more ministract in style than the last. "Ministract: of or pertaining to that which might be minimal, might be abstract or might even be both" - like the 's' in this version. On it's own it's abstract but within the word it's true meaning becomes obvious. John had got right under the skin of ministract and was playing it back to me verbally and visually in a way I'd never experienced before.

Rejected concept for ministract logo

Then he showed me ten of my pictures, scattered randomly (I thought) across a page...

And then the magic of the Creative started. John reduced each of those ten image to its essentials, revealing the outline of a letter - ten different pictures that, in this emerging typography, spelled ministract... F*** me! Excuse the language but at this point I'd got all tingly.

His next goal was to transition the idea from a typography to a logo. But it had to be square and ministract has ten letters... He scribbled away, trying out the different possibilities...

...until he arrived at what he wanted.

Ministract logo on blue

All in all, there are seven on plain coloured backgrounds...

Ministract logo colour options

Four that use my pictures as a background instead...

Four of the ministract image logos

And last but not least, a little one based on the M that's to be used as a buddy icon for Twitter and a favicon for websites. You can see it in the URL address bar.

So now I've redesigned the website around the logo and, following John's advice, have tried to strip it down to something as minimal as possible. I'd be really grateful for some feedback and hints about ways to make it simpler still. Thank you to the people who have helped already - people like my two sons, Finn and Fabe, Kirsten, aka Wolf Shadow Photography and Drew at Photocrati who saved me on at least three occasions!

And, of course, another great big thank you to John for everything he did to create this logo. The story, the commitment, the insights, the way he really 'got' ministract and put it front and centre of his design - everything about this experience has been special and I am enormously grateful. If you're ever on the look out for someone to help you then get in touch with Mr Spencer! And in the meantime, read his occasional tweets and - a must read! - take a look at this short piece he wrote for Design Week: Six things I know (and one I don't). It's brilliant.

Thanks again, John.

Idiosyncratic: the story of a logo

Travel Photographer of the Year

Returning