2263482726 andrew@blufox.ca
[uc_dropcaps style=”uc-normal”]B[/uc_dropcaps]luFox went though a couple of design concepts for their logo – even a name change before BluFox officially came to be. When I finally decided that I wanted to start up my own business after graduating St. Clair College for Internet Applications and Web Development back in 2011, I knew I had to start with 2 things; A company name, and a visual demonstration of my work. Both of which were already in its starting phases during college with a website named “Andrew R.A. Oliver” that was made to showcase my college projects, as well as two websites that I’ve created.

Naming a Company

Andrew R.A. Oliver Logo

 

 Since I’ve created a website called “Andrew R.A. Oliver Professional Web Developer” (which was hosted at www.andrewraoliver.com) to show off my college work, I’ve decided to run with it as the company name. It was not taken already by any other web developer company (obviously) and it didn’t need that much work to turn over into a company. I was still finishing college and I didn’t want to spend too much time on it – I wanted to begin working before I graduated since that is what I would be doing right afterwards anyways. While everyone would be looking for a job after graduation, I would already be establishing a company. Some of the students in my class criticized me for this saying that “I should remain focused on my college work…“, but why not start early if you are already ahead of your work in college? And so I began designing the logo for “Andrew R.A. Oliver” The logo consisted of a “>” coding tag with a red circle to create an “A” inside of an “O”. This was the first draft of the logo. There was also a brief logo and name for “Oliver Designs” that was proposed, but was never used.

 After some websites have been made, I realized that Andrew R.A. Oliver as well as the email andrew@andrewraoliver was way too long, and if I have had any hopes of the company growing and expanding to a point where I would be hiring, I certainly would not want to work for a company named after my boss. It sounded selfish, and you want a business that other people can call their own. And with that, I began to think of names that I could call my company. I also wanted to expand into other creative fields that I accelerate at such as photo restoration/enhancing, filming, editing, creating DVD/Bluray discs etc. All in which are linked to multimedia. Furthermore, I did not want to name my company directly to the medium I worked with, and I wanted it unique. Names such as Sony, Lay’s, Nike, LEGO, Intel, IKEA etc. are all unique names to my knowledge and names like Microsoft, FedEx, FaceBook, Ebay are and all compound words that utilize two or more related words into one name.
I wanted the name able to link to an object/animal that could be used as a mascot. I’ve chose to use one of my favorite animals which is a fox (also since it is used in websites with the Firefox browser) – other possibilities included dolphin, raccoon, and eagle or falcon. Now to find another word to make the business name unique. This included an adjective, verb, color, or a multimedia based term. After some thought, I went with a color, since color can be used and versatile in just about any media projects quite easily. I didn’t want to go with red, since that would be relating to an animal directly (the red fox) and I didn’t want to go with water since it related to Firefox too closely. I’ve considered neon, black, yellow and ultimately chose blue, since it gave me a very unique visual of something that would be odd to exist, creating lasting visual because it is unusual. The word Blue was also changed to Blu since it also took in consideration of the Blu-ray media, tying in the multimedia aspect into the name itself, making the name further unique. And so BluFox was the new company name, and now with the name chosen, I had to come up with a logo.

Creating the BluFox Logo

First BluFox Logo Concept
 This was the first logo concept for BluFox. The fox shown here was also a decal I’ve created and used on the hood of my 2002 GMC Sonoma. The blue pickup truck was passed down to me by my late grandfather Larry Oliver. I decided to use this decal as the fox head within the logo design. The fox within the letter “O”, and the line within was to make a dual purpose symbol interpreting both an on/off symbol, and a letter O for Oliver. I still like this concept, and I may return to it in the future of BluFox in some way. The logo ended up being too complex for most and in the end, didn’t look too appealing. It was also very complex of a logo wit too many fine details (eyes and nose) to be used in a printable medium or a very small logo or stamp. I decided to move on other sketches of a possible logo.
Blu-Fox Logo
Next, for the logo of Blu-Fox should I choose to use the dash. I know that having a dash in your domain name is not the best idea as it is often missed and is also difficult to say audibly through television and especially radio. I do however still like the fox head on this one as it looks quite sharp. The tail represents the dash within the name while the bottom of the “x” resembles the front legs. After further inspection, it also looks as if the bottom of the “f” makes the standing fox looks like it is standing to pee.

Finally, the BluFox logo was starting to take shape. This is an early concept of the logo. A modern style logo to be kept simplistic and versatile. I wanted to have the logo in such a way that only one color is used on a white background should I choose to print it, or use it in other media formats. Nothing complex. This design was modified and worked on until the final logo was created:

This is the final logo for BluFox. The back half of the logo has been adjusted the most, and the two furthermost legs has been connected to the base. This was to ensure that there was no floating pieces of the logo should I ever decide to create a 3-D print version. A square, strict monotone logo was also created for anything that is square formatted such as icons, simplistic tags, stamps and watermarks, while maintaining the company name in an easy-to-read format. The name was put into an extended base, with the bottom corners squared off.
There was a change in both font and structure of the text as well. The font is now bold, and the F is capitalized. This was in effort to help the reader to distinguish the two words more quickly, and to hopefully show that both words are 3 letters, lessening the changes of misspelling Blu for Blue. There was also a concept used to stack these words on top of each other as well, but the text seemed off balance with both capital letters on the left side.

 And that is the history of BluFox’s business logo design and concepts. I look forward to seeing how this will evolve into the future, and how the company itself will evolve. I would also like to send a special thanks to my brother Matthew Oliver for creating this logo as well as helping out with the logo for Andrew R.A. Oliver.

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