Logo design for a Russian Lion Dance crew and their Chinese teahouse. From the start I had a challenge to combine several absolutely different symbols in one logo, first of all the client wanted to see a steam of freshly brewed tea that coming out of Gaiwan (Chinese tea brewing bowl). Besides that the logo should somehow represent the Lion Dance as well. Challenge accepted!
As usual I want to share with you my logo development process. First I started with some tea.
Tea + steam + Gaiwan
The Lion
Rough sketch of the idea.
Trying to combine both elements in one design.
Love this speech so much. It helps me a lot during the hard times of creative crisis.
Just a small illustration of Jimi Hendrix I made over the afternoon while listening to Jimi playing guitar with his teeth.
In order to achieve more organic look with the grain, I used a scan of high ISO negative film which produced a very nice effect.
Illustrator shapes
Initial sketch
A project for a friend of ours, who sells Tibetan antiques in a small and very cozy shop near Wushan Hill in Hangzhou. The goal was to create a logo, business card and shop sign.
The client liked our business card concepts so much, that he decided to make two sets.
Here is the initial drawing of letterpressed part, made by Katya.
The structure of our logo.
The shop.
The view on HuiMin street.
Business cards render. Letter-press goodness in all it’s glory.
A packaging design I made for my homemade kombucha.
I’ve got some really neat Chinese fonts recently and decided to play around with them. First I looked into Japanese Sake packaging for inspiration.
Than the SCOBY was born.
Tried a circle label but it looked too much as alcohol packaging and I’m packing a super healthy drink here after all.
Just couple of shots I made during our walk around the Anman Fayun hotel in Hangzhou, China.
Camera: TLR Rolleiflex 3.5
Film: Ilford XP2 400
Katya made some tasty coconut cookies for us and brought them in this lovely woven bag.
怪卡门
Sarah Wu
A calligraphy piece from an Anman’s exhibition.
:)
Here is a project for a Manjiela company selling luxurious Chinese medicine – cordyceps. Manjiela is a branch of 同仁堂 (TongRenTang), the largest producer of Chinese medicine, that was founded in 1669.
Cordyceps is a very expensive type of fungi which, according to Tibetan medicine powerful enough to fight cancer. It looks similar to this:
The task was to create a logo for a company’s shop in Tibet and to think about overall VI.
A huge amount of work was done, tons of information on Tibetan culture and symbolism has been studied, lots of ancient Tangkas reviewed. Let’s look closer at Manjiela (the Medicine Buddha):
Usually the Medicine Buddha was depicted seated, holding a jar with medicine nectar in his left hand and resting his right arm on a right knee. In the sutra, he is also surrounded by lapis lazuli-colored aura.
The practice of Medicine Buddha, the Supreme Healer (or Sangye Menla in Tibetan) is not only a very powerful method for healing and increasing healing powers both for oneself and others, but also for overcoming the inner sickness of attachment, hatred, and ignorance, thus to meditate on the Medicine Buddha can help decrease physical and mental illness and suffering.
-Wiki
Below are several concept logos, that we created together with Ekaterina Vernigorova.
The concept and inspiration came from the Buddha’s crown decoration and traditional Tibetan textile patterns:
A couple of color suggestions, I really happy how it turned out in lapis lazuli color, which is the main color of the Medicine Buddha as you might remember. (see above)
The logo looks gorgeous in gold color as well.
Here is a second concept, let’s quickly tear it apart to see the symbolism behind it.
First there is the letter “m”.
Than there are cordyceps.
Traditional ornaments.
And traditional colors, where yellow is a color of compassion in Buddhism, and brown represents warmth, support and, in our case, stands for the cordyceps color as well.
The next logo also carries a couple of symbols inside. First of all the outer shape of logo comes from the outline of the “Endless knot”:
…without beginning or end; are a universal symbol for eternal life, the eternal cycle of nature, and eternal love.
The second symbol is a divine aura, surrounding the Medicine Buddha.
In the inner circle of the logo, letter “M” represents mystic Tibetan mountains in the clouds.
Gold emboss.
Inspiration for this logo came from the traditional Tibetan cloud thrones and cloud elements.
Looks great in lapis-lazuli.
Development process.
A fresh set of sketches from Bali. Enjoy.
Super quick sketch of airport shuttle bus.
Sketching on the plane with a leaking marker.
Sleepy and bored people.
Chinese girl enjoying a sunset.
LCCT KLIA airport view. Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur.
Guy in sarong parking a VW.
Sketching people in Seniman coffee shop, Ubud. Coffee syphon at the background.
“Just enjoying my coffee.” Seniman.
Drawing.
Ai-chan teaches us coffee.
Paleo style local food. Chicken satay, potato egg cakes, sausage made of organ meat, sauerkraut.
Sketching people at the “KAFE” in Ubud.
Sketching people at the “KAFE” in Ubud.
Batik painter
Bathroom parking.
Buffalos at Tenganan village.
Pier next to the “Ulundanu Beratan Tabanan” floating temple.
Of course I made a stamp at the post office.