We had the opportunity to work a couple times with TOYS Bodyboards on different projects and one of them was logo designs for some of the boards in the TOYS 2008/2009 and 2009/2010 range.

We thought it’d be cool to let you know how logos are designed, from which ideas and what the pros actually want for their logos when you work with them on a new board logo from scratch.

Among some of the logos we worked on for TOYS we really liked working on Aka Lyman’s new logo for this year and it’s our favorite among the ones we’ve done, mostly because Aka Lyman and Will George (Toys Boards Owners) kinda let us do whatever we wanted with just a few directions from Aka. So we’ll use the aka logo as an example and will explain (or try to) what the different steps are to design/work on a logo with a brand and a rider:

1. The brief and talk:

Here was pretty much Aka’s brief we got for his new logo – “for my new Aka II logo I had an idea with the number “II” and the AKA letters for the logo and I told Theo (Spongercity editor/designer) to run with it and come up with what ever he thinks looks best”.

So the only real obligation we had was to include Aka name’s and the number “II” because it was Aka’s second board with Toys.

2. Research:

We started working on heaps of different ideas and weren’t happy with any of the logos until we eventually came up with a logo that had a big AKA lettering using a clean sort of roman font and the roman numbers “II” right under it. The II and AKA are sealed together and we only left the contour on the logo. It looks like a movie or video game logo somehow and we sent it to Aka and Will for feedback.

3. Feedback and potential changes (sometimes endless changes and modifications!)

Aka actually wanted to keep it. We got lucky and were stoked. This doesnt happen too often. Usually you need to go back and forth a dozen time and sometimes start from scratch again and again, trying to find a logo that matches the rider’s style and what he likes. Aka – “The first logo he sent me is the one that is one my board now. He nailed it on the first go at it! It’s simple, visible and that’s what I wanted. I’m not into logos where there is a bunch of stuff going on. The Aka II logo is perfect for me cause it reminds me of a jersey with my name and number on it. Being a big sports fan I really dig that.” Here’s the logo:

- Original logo as we designed it
- Logo on the finished boards for the 2010 range
- Close up on the logo (Will George’s beer on the pic)

4. The details and technical info:

On the technical side of things a logo must be really clean and completely vectorized to be used either by a screenprinting machine (in factories like Mez in indo who builds the Toys boards) or to be transformed as an iron stamp (for factories like Toobs or CustomX / Cartel in the US or any custom board shaper in Oz for example like QCD, Turbo, Fish at Manta/4Play or G.Edwards at Unknown).

Here the vectorized version of the logo.

The process is different but both need vectorized logos, with clean edges and you alwyas have to pay attention to the size of the logo and the thickness of all contours to make sure it will come out clean on boards. Screenprinting logos is pretty much like screenprinting tshirts, it’s basically paint applied on the boards.

Stamping is slightly different: the logo has an iron stamp mold, you need to heat the mold, once it’s hot enough you apply a sheet of special foil paper with paint on it in between the mold and the board and you apply a gentle pressure for a few seconds to let the paint that is on the paper print the board. Both process are really different but at the end the logo will pretty much look the same on the board. The stamping process usually leaves a mark on the foam. The hot mold leaves a mark on the foam under the paint.

Let us know if you have questions or want to learn more about logos and logo designs for boards or leave comments on this post and we’ll try to answer questions.