Now, I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a little shy about putting this logo design process online. It’s pulled straight out of the archives of 2007, which is before I really accepted my graphic design career as fate.
Looking for a little bit of extra cash I stumbled across Rentacoder.com (now vWorker.com). Rentacoder was appealing because unlike Guru or Elance they do not charge up front fees for membership. Rentacoder only took fees after you were paid for work. Today, over 50% of my freelance work still comes from vWorker.
Anyway, I landed this logo design job for Host-Party.com as one of my early projects. I’ll be the first to say the sketches, and especially my preschool Illustrator doodles, are not my best work when compared to recent works. If you take anything from this, it should be that there’s a big advantage to learning to use Adobe Illustrator proficiently to execute your logo design concepts.
Client Brief
About Host-Party (straight from the website) Founded in 2004, Host-Party.com, LLC has become the leader in downloadable murder mystery party entertainment. Host-party provides a wide selection of murder mystery gameand unique features not found in other murder mystery games. Our authors are writing new games everyday. Check back often to see a fresh list of games for your next party. View the latest murder mystery games now. Learn what our customers think of our games. Read the murder mystery game reviews now.
You can see the existing logo here: http://www.host-party.com/images/logo1.jpg
Key Notes Provided By Client Here is what I want the logo to portray:
- Fun
- Parties
- Party Game
- Mysterious (80% of our games are murder mysteries)
- A magnify glass is a good icon because it represent sleuthing which is used in most our games, but it needs to look fun!
Requirements:
- Colors and styles should be suited to feminine tastes (85% of our customers are women)
- It should be appealing to all age groups
- Try to create a logo that can work with the color scheme at www.host-party.com screenshot from 2007 (I already redesigned this site so its new now, but here’s a wayback screenshot)
- If you can incorporate the name Host-Party Games
Key features of our games/Company
- Our games are Flexible, Customized around your party
- Broad Selection of Games
- Fun and Interesting
- Simple and easy to Use (easy to Host)
Where the Log will be used:
- Website
- Gift Cards in Stores
- Game Packaging
Competitive Logos (None are great)
- How to Host a Murder: http://www.hostamurder.com.au
- BePuzzled
- Murder mYstery Party
- Murder A La Carte
The Sketching Process
Going into this my original thoughts were to incorporate an eye into a magnifying glass. Also, a possibility of trying out a question mark as a frame for the magnifying glass. Perhaps a key? You will see that it starts out a little too crude and somewhat creepy…not true of the logo I touched up finally in use today. 
Taking The Logo Digital
Enjoy these doodles! Some of my first Illustrator work ever. 
Digital Revisions After Feedback
The client was not really feeling my ideas, so I ended up going back into it again. He sent me some smudgy/rugged ideas he had in a Microsoft document. They didn’t really help too much. I focused on what he wrote for feedback. Some comments included, “I don’t want it too look like a claw…” and “How about incorporating a streamer into the handle…” 
More Tweaking And The Final Logo Design
By the end of the logo design process I end up incorporating an eye/eyelashes, magnifying glass, and even a hint of streamer for the handle. For this project I was really being hired to come up with the mark. No typeface usage until later down the road when I’m hired to create the packaging design for their kids mystery game set. I’ll be documenting that very soon for everyone to see. 
The Logo Today
I revamped the logo for a kids version in 2009 resulting in the new typeface introduction 
The Kids Murder Mystery Game Packaging Which I Modeled In Maya 3D After Designing In Illustrator 
After The 2010 Website Revamp 
This project was a huge learning experience for me when I started. Without projects like this I could not be where I am now.
I know most of my readers are coming from Linkedin. If you could leave some comments directly on this post I’d really appreciate it. (duplicates on here and Linkedin are ok with me) Thanks for reading my Host-Party logo design process!
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