Matt Allan contacted OE to discuss a new junior golfing program he was developing for golfers in the 6-14 years age bracket. The logo he required needed to fit in with his current suite of logos for The Golf Centre, but also of a standard that would be adopted by future juniors throughout the target age bracket. Creating a logo that was child-like was a definite no-no. It needed to be wholeheartedly adopted by not only a 6 year old, but also a 14 year old.
As part of our discussions around the brief, we came up with a number of names to be considered. Whilst the name is straightforward in its meaning, we pitched the idea of shortening the "junior" component into "JNR", a trend which has become popular in recent years and also reflects the changing landscape of how people interact with others through emojis, slang and the shortening of familiar words.
This idea can also be further developed into other avenues into the future as required (sorry we can't give any more away on this one!).
Initial designs created included an animal to act as a type of mascot for the brand. A range of different animals were tried including a bear, Tasmanian devil, owl and even a dragon (as Matt is a life long supporter of the NRL team the St George Dragons).
Whilst several of these had merit in terms of an aesthetic, Matt wasn't convinced about the use of some of these animals as they had little relevance to the course or area he operates from. The typeface/s used however, were a definite takeaway from this stage of the project and these were well received.
Many times when a logo project starts out, we design a few concepts which don't proceed. Whilst this may seem like a waste of time, it is actually a positive thing for a designer, as we have now gathered more information on what not to do which can cancel out the need to keep investigating an idea. What we were able to progress with, was the idea of designing a golf related logo that didn't have the typical golf related imagery such as golf balls, a golf club, or a flag. One thing stood out to Matt as being a potential object to use in the design and that was the use of a conifer tree which are used in many golf courses not only across Australia, but world-wide.
We then set about sketching a number of different styled conifer trees. These were then simplified in style until we had a small number of sketches which were easily identifiable as being a conifer, and also ticked many other boxes of being able to be used as stand alone icons on everything from apparel through to golf ball markers (a small coin like object used to mark your golf ball on the putting green).
We presented a couple of items to Matt and he was immediately drawn to one example which used an abstract style conifer outline. Once we added some colour options (being careful not to use a common "bottle" green) Matt was sold on the concept so we immediately went to final art and upon approval, starting the comprehensive branding guidelines document.
Upon completion of the project, a web page on The Golf Centre website was created and can be accessed via the button below.
