Around 2:30 AM on Wednesday, in thinking about preparing for Command X, I got the ridiculous idea to redesign a logo by Friday. I invited logo submissions that were in desperate need of a redesign and the winner was Animal Planet.
Of course, Thursday turned out to be a nightmare so I only spent a few hours on the challenge. Most of that time was spent researching the Discovery Channel, animal patterns, textures in nature, and then I stumbled across this.
I was instantly intrigued. I knew I had seen it before, but I wasn’t quite sure where. A little digging revealed that this illustration was the work of the late Charley Harper, best known for his highly stylized wildlife prints, posters and book illustrations (most notably The Golden Book of Biology).
This style also reminded me of a beloved little creature we all know and love from our early days learning to read.
By the time I discovered the main sources of inspiration to focus on, it was 2:00 AM and I had a lot of homework to do on Friday. Time for bed. Friday flew past me, as anticipated, but by some chance I was able to come up with something. This screen shot (note the time) shows the “early stages” of the playful direction that I felt like Animal Planet should go It is followed by the final logo.
Between you and me, I’m not completely sold on the final result. There are elements that could work well if there were more time to explore, but I’ve learned through this exercise that I need to speed up my research process and significantly increase the number of explorations so that I can produce more unique directions. In the end, however, I have to be confident in my result because Michael Beirut is not going to care whether I had enough time or not. He, much like Tim Gunn, just wants me to “make it work” so we can put on a good show.