BTC Logo Design – A Peek Into the Process

I recently completed a few design and identity projects for Beltway Technology Connections, a startup company in Washington, DC. BTC came to me looking for a new logo and a set of print collateral to go with it. I’m quite pleased with the end result of the logo project, but in the process of creating it a lot of good alternative designs were tossed away. As they would otherwise never see the light of day, I thought I’d post a little bit about my logo design project.

The finished product

The client left this project pretty open-ended. The primary design criteria was that it fit for both of the sectors they market to: federal government agencies and technology companies. Their first logo, which they had always viewed as something of a placeholder, depicted a sketchy line-drawing of the US capitol building – fine for government, but no connection to technology. My first set of sketches included some designs that played off the building idea, and others that took the logo in a more abstract or techy direction.

A sampling of BTC logo sketches

As I continued designing, I moved the sketching process into Adobe Illustrator. I still wasn’t creating polished and complete logos, but switching to the computer allowed me to give the client a better idea of what the final logo would look like. The need to keep the building became clear through this process – the client wanted a concrete symbol for government, and the building worked very well in that regard.

The color scheme was essentially set before the project began. I had already designed 2 or 3 marketing sheets for them, and developed a color scheme of red, light-but-saturated blue, and gray. As such, my main color decision was not which colors to use, but whether to use the full palette (ie, red/blue/gray) or only a subset (red/gray seemed to work the best here).

BTC Illustrator sketches

With the decision to use the building made, I realized that the “tech” side of the logo might need to come from the style. I hit upon the idea of placing the building mark inside a circular badge. Badge or button logos are a trend among tech companies. While trendiness on its own is not a good reason to make a design decision, in this case the “glowy badge” was able to draw the connection between a government building and the tech industry. But also, round emblems are common as logos for governement agencies. So the BTC logo can be read as a stylized update on a governemental crest.

Color, shading, typeface, and building-shape options

With the BTC logo completed, we shifted focus to GovTechConnect, BTC’s flagship product. GovTechConnect is an online directory that helps bring together government agencies with high tech contractors. We decided to keep the style similar to maintain a connection between product and company.

The beginnings of the GovTechConnect logo

The mark within the GovTechConnect badge was based on an early sketch of the BTC logo. A building symbolizes the federal government, while a gear represents tech as well as the concepts of work, efficiency, and industry. A few alternate designs and a little bit of tweaking later, the GovTechConnect logo was ready for use!

 

Design alternatives for the GovTechConnect logo

More options for the GovTechConnect badge. I

Thanks to BTC for this very enjoyable project, and for their cooperation in posting this little window into the process on the Rocdove blog.

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