Headstrong
Job:12-84823 Title:RP-Graphic Design That Works (LDW)
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Text (DS)
Client
Headstrong is an international business consultancy
specializing in technology solutions ranging from IT
systems to Internet and e-commerce sites.
ART DIRECTORS/DESIGNERS
Steve Watson, Lesley Feldman
FIRM
The Leonhardt Group
Process
When Jason Martin + Company approached the Seattle-based firm The Leonhardt
Group, the business consultancy was hoping for a new name and visual identity that
would better reflect its expertise in new technologies. “In the 1980s, the company
was perceived as a bunch of hotshot systems, engineering, and technology guys, but
over the years that perception had changed,” explains TLG design director Steve
Watson. “The company was now viewed as sort of old school and not very exciting.”
To remedy this, the TLG team began by working with the company to re-position it
as a group of consultants with strong opinions, rather than one that simply told
clients what they wanted to hear. Next, the team explored names that would convey
this new positioning, eventually coming up with “Headstrong,” a name that connotes
strong brains, intelligence, and a meeting of minds. However, the name did come
with risks, says Watson. “Headstrong can also connote bull-headedness and inflexi-
bility, and obviously those are not messages the company wanted to communicate,”
he says. So when his team set out to design a logo, an important consideration was
finding a way to temper the name’s negative connotations and emphasize its bold-
ness instead. After creating about 150 sketches of potential directions—from type
treatments to abstract symbols to dozens of illustrations of heads—a concept
emerged: a design that would combine the company’s engineering side with its
human side. To visually represent technology, Watson’s team experimented with
monitor shapes; to convey humans, various renderings of figures were explored.
One promising design featured a stylized man whose head was a monitor, says
Watson, but it was abandoned “because it looked too much like the Restroom guy.”
Instead, the team shifted to more realistic renderings, eventually deciding to photo-
graph a variety of people—both professional models and TLG employees—in poses
ranging from thoughtful to defiant. After culling through the results, the team select-
ed three, modified them in Photoshop, and replaced their heads with four monitor-
shaped forms. Next, a logotype was added which was based on Clicker, a face whose
letterforms echo the monitor shapes of the symbol. As a final step, Watson’s team
experimented with color, but ultimately decided to stick with black and white “to
give the figures a kind of chic, Armani-esque type feel,” says Watson.
What Works
The logo, which consists of an all lowercase logotype and three human figures with
monitor-like shapes in place of heads, suggests both the services the company offers
and the way those services are provided: The monitor-heads and mechanical-look-
ing logotype refer to the company’s technological expertise, while the figures—two
men and a woman—reflect the company’s focus on individual ideas and opinions.
For the company’s
website, the logo’s
three figures are used
as navigational tools.
Graphic Design That Works
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040-069 84823 10/12/05 2:05 PM Page 58
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