A significant part of my school (the Art Institute of Indianapolis) is the culinary program. Recently, they opened a gourmet restaurant to be operated by students. The culinary department and PR reps approached our Corporate Identity class with a special project: to design a logo for the restaurant.
The restaurant is called Eleven at the Pyramids (it’s located on the 11th floor, so the name helps to compensate for a lack of storefront presence).
As members of the class, we went about this project competitively. There were so many aspects of the restaurant to pick up on and conceptualize. I choose to focus on the uniqueness of the space. It’s cool, well designed, and has a view of the Indianapolis skyline on a clear day. My first draft was an abstraction of the floor-to-ceiling window, the columns, and the skyline.
The restaurant people didn’t see this one, but my teacher and I discussed refining the lines, heightening the sense of depth, and moving away from the heart monitor look.
So in draft 2, I added little tables (with pyramid napkins!) in the foreground. Also, the new line quality more closely imitates the flowiness found in the restaurant’s own design.
Out of the 20 in our class, 6 logos were chosen by the culinary staff for further revisions. Mine was among them. Some of their concerns included: the strong horizontal proportions, how it would appear at small sizes, and the tables looking like boxes of tissue. Oops!
My teacher offered even more focused suggestions. Two weeks and many frustrated attempts later, I offered this revision. I also gave them a version without chairs, in case they were feeling more in a more abstract mood.
This logo is now among the top 3 that will undergo further refinement before they make their decision. Rumor is, they want it simplified. Watch this space for the final version!