Almost a year ago a dear friend of mine asked me to think over his activity’s logo and today I would like to show you the work done.
Just to be clear, this work did not take me an year it’s only that I did not publish it on the blog yet.

“Il cappellatio matto” (literally The mad Hatter) is an animation agency, mainly for kids but is starting to approach also the adults.
They are a group of young animators which with their fantasy and joviality make parties more funny and special.

The initial logo which I started to work on was this one:

In my honest opinion there was some valid points to keep fixed, as in example the circular form and the outline of the character that characterize the activity. Also the colors, even though with some changes in the shades, have been more or less the same.

The most important thing to keep in mind when you want to review a logo is to be able to create something new but at the same time keep a sort of continuity with the old one. Final customer must be able to feel and read this continuity: it is important in order to not lose the identity without sacrificing renovation (sometimes necessary).

Primary for me was to change a bit the “comics” appearance which made the logo oriented to a childish target.

The first thing I did was to turn the character into a shape, this is very useful especially for the small size printing because in that way you can avoid to add details that would be unreadable.
Then I tried to modernize the entire logo by adding some joyous but clean types, the small cup, the teapot (typical for the character). All that helped to turn the new logo into something similar to a stamp. I also changed the shade of the colors.

Another thing on which we worked on a lot was the pay-off. It was not so easy and then we chose for the “Party Planner” because is the definition that more than other represent the road covered by the “Cappellaio Matto” during the last years.

After all that I realized the t-shirt, fliers, and the customizable invitation to the parties.

For a few months is online the Cappellaio Matto’s website (www.ilcappellaiomatto.it) for which i took care for the graphic guide-line.

What else I can say.. it was a pleasure work with the Cappellaio Matto’s staff and his boss. Although he is sometimes stubborn he is also an open mind and was interesting and stimulating confront with him. For all of that I can do no other than say Thank you Cappellaio Matto for giving me this chance.