An icon must be explained and connected to the brandname with expensive communication. The first thing you have as a brand is your name and a way how to write it. A typographic expression. A strong logotype will not need an icon to be a successful brandmark. Fashion or cars need an icon or a contraction of the brandmark on the products. In some cases a complex brand architecture gathers arround an icon, but these are exceptions. To design a stong logotype you cannot just use a typeface. Innovation, variation and craftsmanship have to make it unique.
Although I worked in many aspects of corporate branding, I am now focused on brandmark development. In this section I want show a few branding projects I was involved in the past.
BeaBitzer shop www.beabitzer.de
Lothar Böhm Hamburg
I am very glad to see this logotype used now, because it was always my favourite option.
Hertie is a widely known brand of a retail store chain here in Germany.
for Lukas Clark Hamburg
I have an ongoing discussion about spencerian handwriting with Edward Leida from W- magazine New York. While he tried to get Di Spigna design him some headlines, I designed Mommie for LOfficiel based on the very same idea. Now finally I designed this little headline for him.
This is the logotype for a newsblog I did for Marcus Greinke
Schwarzer Adler is one of my favorite places to go out
The Bally branding project was one thing I am still glad about, because we avoided
to work with a branding agency. Boris Bencic, the former art director of Frank magazine
in London took me on bord for the redesign of the logotype, the basic elements, the manual
and the corporate typeface. The result was very nice, I still really like it.
Flashmanual
Brandmark for an art project that dealt with plants you can live in
This brandmark for Jan Mohr's Blues Club was inspired by electric guitar logos like Fender
There are little alternations in the logotype. It just gained more personality
through the curved triangles and the elements in the A
More work had to be done to organize the brand architecture of that big
chemical and pharmaceutical company
The title for a german psychological magazine
Gruner & Jahr
The main brand that deals with anything that has to do with sex here in germany.
Enterprise IG Hamburg
A hair cosmetics brand. Before it was designed in a rudly condensed Optima.
The brackeded outlines looked even worse in condensed
Enterprise IG Hamburg
The cosmetics privat brand of DM drugstores
Just Blue Hamburg
The brandmark for the cars fair in Frankfurt, Citigate Demuth Frankfurt
Brandmark for a friend of mine who is a physio therapist
Tissue paper brand
Redpack Hamburg
In the first stage of the evolution the coat of arms had step away from being bavarian
to something not connected to a region. So heaven and angels came into discussion.
At the end the brand was sold and the new managers decided to get back to bavarian.
But the coat of arms had to be optimized for small sizes.
Brandmark for a shampoo
Enterprise IG Hamburg
Title for Frank Magazine based on my Libris font
The typeface for this orchestra should show traditional and modern forms
together in one font, to express that they can handle both.
No money, no honours, not even a free concert, just cultural responsibility
This is the brandmark for a online investment bank
Citigate Demuth Frankfurt
Beer, particularly in Germany, has blackletter logotypes.
Characters like the z, the s, the k and the ornamental capitals need to be tranformed.
Just Blue Design Hamburg
Another good example for the blackletter transformation.
Enterprise IG Hamburg
Some traditional brandmarks are still based on blackletter type. Difficult to read
and bad in small sizes, they need to be tranfered in the direction of the roman.
Citigate Demuth Frankfurt
Asbach is a very traditional german brandy. I developed an evolution
from the existing blackletter mark to a more modern version.
Still the corrected traditional logotype was chosen with less swirles round the A.
Enterprise IG Hamburg
This logotype of a tabako brand was quite a change to the former slab serif one.
Enterprise IG Hamburg
Minor alternations had to be made for Dallmayr due to the limited space
Lothar Böhm Hamburg
Only little corrections had to be made to the logotype of Lätta, a low fat butter product.
Enterprise IG in Hamburg
Die Besten is a collection of sweets. The logotype was commissioned
by Barutzki Design Hamburg
A calligraphic logotype for Knorr designed for Interbrand Hamburg
This logotype was a redesign of the Knorr product for Interbrand Hamburg
After the redesign many of the Quelle privat brands where redesigned, too
and, believe it or not
1999 Enterprise IG in Hamburg commissioned me to work on a new Quelle Brandmark. Almost a year, different stages and hundreds of variants were designed to finally get this solution
