Main Logo
The main logo was inspired by a classic taxi cab sign topper with lights on the side, refined down to a more rounded and crisp logo. The sticker design was something that came in fairly late in the design process, but as soon as I modified the logos the entire feel of the project clicked into place and it helped inform every design choice afterward.
Figure Logos
I wanted each figure to have three things specific to their packaging and associated branding: A font, a set of colors, and a logo. The logos were whatever organization or company they worked for, and were all inspired by different eras of design. The NASA logo is a mix between the original “meatball” logo, the more familiar “worm” logo, and an updated modern design. Crisis Management is a more 80’s feel, with a bit of slasher film design. Cheap-O repair was my attempt at a 1950’s style auto shop, and the last icon for the New Guard is Ancient Roman Fascii in the modern age.
BRAND FONTS
Alternate Gothic ATF in Medium early on became my choice for all of the general text in my branding. The clean and modern look had a bit of a callback to more classic fonts such as Helvetica, and the narrow design allowed for easy placement of text while retaining good readability at a distance.
Each of the figure fonts were chosen to work with the era and design inspirations for their parent figure. I avoided using any sort of bold, italic, or otherwise modified versions of each font and instead hand modified them when needed.
Point of Purchase Display
One of my previous jobs was working for a merchandising company, and my favorite part of the job was putting together the Point of Purchase (POP) displays for new release movies. The overall design of them was very interesting to me, and I loved the way they were made to grab attention from across a large store, using bright colors, and engaging designs.
The lefthand images are the original designs for my POP display, put together in InDesign. I wanted the taxi checkerboard pattern to be visible from every side to give it fun and interesting visual forms from a distance, and then the logo, toy line slogan, and main branding logo the only other complex shapes on the display. I felt that this would help draw attention to the most important aspects of the display, while also limiting the amount of fine detail that would need to be cut out of the black vinyl I was using to create the text.
Having custom printed and cut cardboard proved to be far too expensive for my budget, and wood was not an appropriate material, since I wanted the display to be a realistic POP display you would see in a toy fair or store. I settled on 1/4” foamcore, painted on both sides with latex paint as close as I could get to my branding yellow (I learned to paint both sides to avoid warping after learning the hard way). The latex was cut using a large automated vinyl cutter, then applied over a couple of stressful hours of peeling, sticking, and carefully hunting down air bubbles. The final display can be seen on the right as it was in my senior show, filled with mocked up box product.
