the oeuvre of Tommy Wong » Branding

“PT” logo and early sketch

Tommy — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 14:54:21 +0000

A while back I created a logo for a friend of mine who had the initials ‘P’ and ‘T’, for a piano related business. I did some sketches of an early design where I found if I flipped the arrangement of piano keys upside down, I could see the letters ‘P’ and ‘T’:

After some refinement, I brought it into Illustrator and polished it off:

Developing ‘O’ for Obama

Tommy — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 22:35:34 +0000

Q: What were you thinking when you conceived this idea?

A: When we received the assignment, we immediately read both of Senator Obama’s books. We were struck by the ideas of hope, change and a new perspective on red and blue (not red and blue states, but one country). There was also a strong sense, from the start, that his campaign represented something entirely new in American politics — “a new day,” so to speak.

http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/20/the-o-in-obama/

Rebranding Pepsi… again

Tommy — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 04:28:44 +0000

Pepsi has re-branded itself again. I actually like the new logo; it’s sleek and minimalist. Whereas the text ‘Pepsi’ use to be the main focus, it’s now been redirected to the logo. This is due to the slender font and its position away from the logo. But I’ve always liked Pepsi for the taste anyway.

And if you’d like some bed time reading, you can read designers having a field day about the Pepsi re-branding at http://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/7w0i2/pepsi_logo_a_response/c07k9l7

When Groups Work

Tommy — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 06:17:25 +0000

Gensler is the biggest architecture firm in the world, however, my attention is not on their buildings but on their website and the high-quality material they have on there. Their videos are clear and simple and non-patronising; unlike Westpac’s infamous ‘banana smoothie’ campaign.

Transitions (both visual and content) are seamless and the minimalist animation style is attention grabbing and simple to mentally comprehend.

The video was created by advertising company Fairly Painless.

Branding Blackboard

Tommy — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 23:26:32 +0000

Branding anything is difficult, universities included. How does one make the university appear fresh and modern, flavoured with conservatism, which reinforces the institution as a place of knowledge and power – is it possible to have the best of both worlds?

With any design, a lengthy refinement process grew out of my original (top banner) idea, gradually changing it to the near final result (most bottom banner).

Since these banners were being designed for the Faculty of the Built Environment, I came up with a pattern/motif that resembled folded paper – a common starting point for looking into forms and facades – one of them pays homage to the shells of the Sydney Opera House. At the risk of being too suggestive, the patterns/motifs were dropped and the team settled on a plain generic banner.