Rachel and I teamed up to work on the logo for Alchemie (a company created by one of our fashion programs). Alchemie will be selling wallets which they designed and are producing. 

Our Corporate Communications class participated in naming the “company” as well as each of us presented logos for their selection.  While our logo did not make the final cut, we were in the top 3! I think we hit the mark for the homework assignment; however, since we were told to design as if this were an international corporation that intended to grow and not to focus on simply this one product. We were also requested to keep our presentation limited to a specific set of slides, one black and white and one color version of the logo, and to a short timeframe.  

In our presentation, we were to outline our process.  Alchemie is a play on the French for alchemy. If you are interested in seeing the short presentation with some of our early sketches and explanation of our process, you can view it here> Alchemie Project.

So what did I learn? I thoroughly enjoyed teaming up with Rachel, and working the process with her was fun and helped fuel my own creativity! I have always preferred teamwork when the team is responsible and able to pool resources!

I think I also learned it is ok to break the rules outlined by the instructor if you really want the project? That is what the winning group did, anyway, with a long presentation and they definately took it to the theme of wind/earth/fire/water, which was for this particular product set only, thus locking the company into that theme forever. I don’t know and am a bit confused on that point.

What I am not sure of is if that would work in the real world. I think that is something I would be checking out ahead of time because to make such a gamble could sink your company if you were wrong. I have worked with companies where they will throw out your presentation without review if it does not fit the guidelines they set forth. They view it as you are not hearing their initial request and thus they do not want to work with you in the future.

So I am a bit confused as to what happened with this project. I think the Alchemie group was not looking at things long term and were a bit tunnel visioned with their current project. The logo  they chose (while excellent) was very specific to their current product line.

The majority of the class followed what we were told, and there were some wonderful offerings on the table for a global mark! There is real talent in this school!