I was contacted the other day by someone who had seen a website I had created for another client, and wanted to commission me to build one for her. As she lived in Florida many miles and time-zones away, and as I like to talk with my clients even prospective ones so that I can get the best understanding I can of there needs, I arrange to call her and do the meeting over the phone. To cut a long story short she liked what I proposed, and it was decided that I should design a site and a logo.
I wanted the logo done first so that I could get an understanding of whether I had rightly understood her design needs before all the time and expense of creating the website (more of that later).
Anyway the brief was fairly open, the client had many ideas, which is always good, so I had to try and find something that was common to all those ideas a representative icon. So I hit the ‘net and the books looking for inspiration, the more I looked, the more I kept coming back to something I had written in my notes from when I spoke with the client. I had written ” simple classic, not fussy, timeless “. To me that translated to an Interpretation of needs expressed like this. There are two sides to the character of the pieces you make and wish to highlight. The name ‘The Palace Jewels’, evokes a certain lifestyle, elegance and a ‘savoir faire’ this relates to those who would buy the pieces. You are especially passionate about the historical, cultural and geographic influences that give your pieces their identity, this references a world very different to the intended purchaser. The identity therefore expressed by the name The Palace Jewels is quite different to the influences and passion you feel for the geography and culture that influenced the creation of the pieces. I therefore decided to concentrate on the buyer for your pieces as expressed by the name The Palace Jewels. I wanted something elegant but restrained. Something that would enhance your pieces and not overwhelm them. I decided to keep the colours to a minimum and indeed used classic black and white as used in most evening wear by both men and women ( for example: the tuxedo, and the black dress )
Here is the resulting text logo that was used for business cards and will be used as the masthead for the web site.