Oliver Ker Design

Recent Work: HTML 5 Doctor

Back in July 2010 Rich Clark got in touch about HTML 5 Doctor and that they were going to be giving the website a refresh and would I be interested in taking a look at the logo.

I was excited and honoured to be asked and so we got down to discussing the direction of the logo and where the brand might go. Rich wanted the brand to be:

• Fun but not corny – our writing style can be homorous and we do play on the doctor theme a little
• Clean not messy
• Colourful but not garish
• Approachable and open not closed and univiting
• Easy to read not distracting
• Authoritative without being too techy

and it to be able to carry through all his HTML 5 sites, well the gallery and Doctor site, but maybe there’s more to come!

After some initial mood boards and chats I sketched a few thoughts, of which we agreed a direction and I jumped into looking at typefaces, colours and imagery.

Rich wanted the typeface if possible to be used as @font-face with out any licensing issues or paid to host services. The font we arrived at was Quicksand which has technical contemporary feel to it but the rounded corners soften it, making it a ‘friendly’ font, which Rich said from the very beginning that the message was to be authoritative yet humorous tone of voice.

Above were a couple of earlier concepts using pictures instead the written word. Some of these maybe re-visited at a later date, but chose not to develop at this stage which lead us onto finishing up final versions for use.

The outer shape is as obvious as it looks, a tag. Giving it that irregular shape and softness gives slightly more interest and dynamic, but not loosing the original intended use of the subject.

Jack Osborne is hard at work on the new site, which I have seen some of the templates, and can say he is doing a great job and really taken time to think through the layout with all the content that is going on the site.