Creating the Catlips Creative Logo
Lots of different pictures of cats. Which one would you choose?
I’m often told by people that they like my logo. This is great. I’m sure there are plenty of people that don’t like it - this is fine, too. I don’t need you to like my logo. I don’t need to like my logo.
A good logo needs to be practical, memorable and to reflect your brand values in a meaningful way.
Practicality comes above all else. If I can’t use my logo in a particular application, it may as well not exist.
Is it legible when it’s teeny-tiny?
How does it look when it’s mahoosive?
Does it work in black and white?
How will it work in a lockup with other logos?
Is it possible to reproduce in different media, such as cut vinyl or embroidery?
Are you actually able to print that lurid colour you’ve chosen because it ‘pops’?
Being memorable is not about how the logo looks in itself. Apple did not design a memorable logo. Nike did not design a memorable logo. There, I said it. Don’t @ me.
If you saw the. Apple or Nike logo for the first time today, by next week you would have forgotten them. I promise.
These brands have repeatedly and consistently delivered high-quality products for many years.
Nobody sees an Apple logo on a phone and says “Wow! That logo is an absolute BEAUT! You know, I love it so much, I’m gonna spank £1200 quid on that puppy and then put it in a case so I can keep it all to myself!” What they do say is “Wow, I bet that must be a GREAT phone as it’s made by Apple, I had an old phone by Apple which I loved but I remember seeing lots of positive reviews for other Apple products so they obviously know what they’re doing!”
Nobody sees a tick on a pair of trainers and says “Blimey! That tick puts Mr Tubblethwaite’s from maths class to shame! I’m gonna save up for those bad boys, just so I can wear them to class and throw shade at him!”. Somebody may see the tick and say “Yeah man! Those are Nikes! Take my Money - I wanna jump like Jordan!”
Maybe.
Either way, If that tick weren’t designed so it could be stitched onto the side of a sneaker, or if that Apple couldn’t be made into a glowing beacon of smugness on the back of a laptop for all the paying customers to see, none of this would matter. Practicality comes first.
A glowing Apple laptop
My laptop brings all my chums to the yard
And so we come to brand values. A good logo should mean something. Sure, not everyone may not know what it means but that doesn’t matter.
What matters is the intent. Play in the same playground as your values. If you play on the tennis court but love that skate park aesthetic, it’s just going to go and make things so complicated.
Let’s take a look at our pair of example logos again.
There are plenty of values-based rumours about the Apple logo. There’s the one about Alan Turing being the missing bite out of the computing apple. Ot the one about Adam and Eve and the bite of knowledge. All complete tosh. It’s an Apple because, well, Apple. There’s a bite out of it so that it still looks like an apple at small sizes and not a cherry. Once again practicality trumps all. But then again, practicality is Apple’s brand. Everything they make is simple in form. Everything is intuitive and uncomplicated. Like an apple.
And Nike? It may look like a random shape but it’s not. It is Inspired by the winged Victory statue, the Nike of Samothrace, in the Louvre, as well as by the idea of movement and speed. You may not know that but it shows in the design regardless. It looks like something fast - a bird’s wing, a tight turn, the path of a runner’s foot. It feels fast. Totally on-brand for Nike.
But what about the Catlips Creative logo, I hear you ask. Well, I don’t, but I’ll tell you anyway.
So I’m not going to try and tell you my logo is great, good, or even just OK. It probably isn’t any of those. After all, I did knock it up in the pub in a couple of hours one afternoon in 2020. To be fair, we were there because there were rumours that all the pubs were going to be shut down that night. That was the last pint of ale for a while!
The intent behind it still stands though and that is what I wanted to talk about.
The name of Cat Lips and the logo are intertwined. The logo is a stylised version of a cat’s nose and mouth. The name CatLips Limited (now, Catlips Creative, but that’s another story) was inspired by Audrey. Here’s how that fits with my brand and values:
The story of CatLips and Audrey is a very personal and human one. I am a human and treat everyone I work with with humanity. I am not a faceless company.
I wanted the logo to have a bit of humour to it because that is who I am. If you’re not having fun when you work, then what’s the point?
The logo needed to feel warm and relaxed, like a cat, and as I try to be with people I work with. We all works in the arts where an impossible deadline or contemporary dance emergency is just around the corner. I try to be a calming influence and the logo should reflect that.
I didn’t want the logo to look too ‘designed’. In my work, I aim to empower people to do their jobs, not gatekeep design. If people look at it and say “I could have done that” then for me that’s a positive.
While I didn’t want the logo to look designed, I wanted it to be designed. Firstly, it first and foremost needs to be designed to be practical. Secondly, design is my business, so it can’t look like poo.
From there, the process was simple.
I knew what cat lips looked like (have reference cat)
I could take proportions from said cat so the design is rooted in reality.
I could formalise the design using basic shapes for balance. This was easy because nature is full of mathematical marvels.
I could tweak the formalised design to ‘feel’ more natural. Humans are more comfortable with imperfection.
So a picture paints a thousand words so maybe I should have gone for that before typing a thousand words.
Here it is. My logo. Not just a random shape but a symbol drawn with intent in a way that represents me and the way I work.
