Updates and off to the grand final is…..

Here are the talking points from the past day or so:

1. Labelhead here, labelheads there, OLP goes Labelheads crazy. Legofish has even created a flash labelheads creator tool, so you can make your own labelhead. There was also a pirate inspired special edition for “talk like a pirate day“.

2. Do you know the nationality of the person who made this design? If so bag yourself a La Fraise shirt in Ami’s Thursday mini-comp. Look out for more of these in future.

3. We hit the 1000 design mark. Wow, we didn’t expect it to happen at all, never-mind this early on. Lufograf is the lucky one, with his first entry “my own label“, it treads familiar ground but its well executed.

4. The following designs are getting a lot of love at the moment. You can also see the most popular entries at a glance by browsing the wk4picks here http://olp.spreadshirt.net/entries/category/wk4picks/

Spreadshirt Colour Logo

Laptop Label by Irenzia

And some interesting designs that didn’t get so many comments yet:

First pirates, now Superheroes? We’re loving Nelsons imagination and comic styling of this entry.

Think Spreadshirt Update by InaDimova

Creative Logo by Fraser0206. Idea that could be developed further, allowing mixing and matching of different elements to describe the Spreadshirt user experience.

Multicoloured Labels by laurent

Grand Finalists

Oh, and I guess you want to know who of this weeks shortlist made the Grand Final right? Well after another round of voting, a tense review meeting with the team and the panel feedback its another two this week - Labelheads and Lovetab. Lets discuss each in turn:

Labelheads

I expect that some of you might think we were seduced by the charm of making our own or seeing little pirate labelheads invading the OLP. That wasn’t the case, well maybe a little bit. We started discussing labelheads in the review session by looking at this version:

The naked labelhead, this still had to work and for us it did. We still really liked this, sure it lacks spice, but that’s okay. One of the weaknesses of the fingerprint was that it was just that our fingerprint. Everything about our service is customised, but our logo was static. Labelheads nudges us in another direction, providing the frame (the naked version) and inviting our customers and shop-partners to play around with our logo, to make theri version of it, after all we’re just the frame that holds their picture. There is still some work to do here:

a) The separation between Spread & Shirt

b) It still feels a little to avatar or weemee, or mii and it could better represent what we do, we’re a clothing customization company, this is an area played with least in this design which focuses more on the head/hairstyles.

c) We have to portray an image of reliability and professionalism this might be too playful at present.

But everything else we love and this definitely deserves a spot in the grand Final.

Lovetab

Definite improvement in the new version, great detail, its now more flexible, and now has greater standalone potential and can be customized and altered through the additional tag. Again still some room for improvement particularly the typo, we’re still not digging it. It feels like the Tagline and Spreadshirt don’t support each other properly. But we’re really happy with how this design is progressing and think now is the right time to put it through to the final. Remember this was the runaway internal and panel favourite from both last this week.

So congratulations to Kimlarsen & Legofish !!!

One design also came close, Spreadheart by Laurent. We felt somehow this was just a little too generic, not quite striking enough. However we think its one of the best executions of text and logo elements working together harmoniously. But the downside of combining them in this way is that the the design needs a lot of space, and you have to break it to take a part away (eg the shirt) if you want to show a stand alone element. Congratulations to Laurent for coming close, commiserations for missing out :(
Panel Feedback

gave the most detailed feedback this week, here are his picks:

1. Labelheads - I wanted to add that I do like the type treatment in this, very stylized. And I think you could take this “customizable character” concept pretty far.

2. Spreadheart - I like the use of the heart in this one, I could see that motif getting used in a lot of different ways. My only concern would be how commonly used a theme hearts are in general, this could dilute the brand a bit. I like the blue / red color scheme. I feel the core shirt logo form could use some massaging to make this a winner.

3. The Hand by Theoze - This logo has a great visceral impact right off the bat, definitely my favorite of the batch. The hand is a bold icon and the overall logoform is very recognizable and would be portable across a wide variety items. I think the typeface could use some more work to make it feel a little more unique. I would like to see something other than color be used as the differentiating factor between the two words. (”Lovetab” does this well with the weight)

4. Lovetab - This one has some good concepts, but still has a way to go to feel finished. I like the digital heart metaphor, but maybe those stars could be solid blocks for a more bold look. I like the type treatment, I think if it were humanized a bit by simulating penciled edges or a stencil effect it could feel a little more unique. I don’t like the use of the shading on the labels as this would not be readily portable to other formats (e.g. screen-printed items) and I think the overall layout of the various elements is a little jumbled.

Thanks to everyone who took part in wk3!