Finding your Climbing Mojo

I’ve been meaning to write a post about the Climbing Mojo logo/brand development for a while now, this was the first logo I’ve been contracted to do in quite a while and overall I am very happy with the final results.

Initial Phone call (AKA: The Brief)

During the initial phone call with the client we discussed what their expectations and goals were with the logo. Although they were creating a website aimed at climbers they didn’t want a bland logo that would be indistinguishable from their competitors. But at the same time they didn’t want to turn off their core audience of experienced climbers.

So essentially were were looking at finding the sweet spot between “standing out on the shelf” and “catering to the core audience”. One of the other major considerations was that this brand was first & foremost a website brand, so the logo would not only have to stand up in the climbing industry, but also in the web 2.0 world of youtube & digg.

The Initial Concepts

For the initial client pitch I prepared 3 separate concepts, one that was very on the nose and industry related, one brightly coloured “web 2.0″ option, and one off the wall option which looked nothing like their industry.

In addition to the actual logo concepts themselves I also included a number of mockups to show how the brand would translate across different media. This included photoshop mockups of Climbing Mojo apparel such as t-shirts and water bottles, and even a rough draft of what to expect on a website at smaller sizes.

This step, although time consuming tells a much better story of each concept then a simple logo isolated on a white background can do. Suddenly the client has an idea of how this mark is going to look in the real world, and how people might react to it in different mediums.

An uber shiny, reflection crazy icon might look great on a computer screen or mobile phone, but how will it look in a magazine add? Or embroidered onto a t-shirt?

Revisions

Although the client was pleased with the initial 3 concepts, none of them were quite there yet. The typography & style of the first concept was close, but the colour was too pedestrian and the mountains were a little too on the nose. The decision was made to keep the basic style of it, but swap in the more vibrant orange from the second concept and to find a new icon that could serve as more of a good luck amulet or icon in which some one could hold.

So the next round of creative focused on finding an icon to go along with the word mark, something that would speak to the selected name and serve as a good luck charm for the site and it’s users. To that end I explored a number of different options, from tiki gods to abstract shapes with decorative flares.

The Final Results

The final result ended up being one of the tiki god heads, do to some concern about cultural sensitivity the option without the tongue hanging out was chosen, but I still think the version with the tongue was my personal favourite from the options presented.