Creating a new logo for the San Luis Obispo Little Theatre
A few months ago, Kevin Harris from the San Luis Obispo Little Theatre approached us with a project. Over the past few years we’ve done several poster designs for the SLO Little Theatre but this time, Kevin was looking for a new logo for the theatre. We were definitely excited. We met with Kevin for an obligatory beer and burger (corn dogs for Kevin) strategy session and discussed what the logo should convey. Kevin wanted the logo to be fresh, clean, modern… He also wanted it to tell a little bit of the story of what makes a little theatre a little theatre. We left the first meeting and decided that it would be a good idea for Kevin to send some examples of logos from other theatres that he liked. This is what he sent us.
We immediately got excited when we saw Kevin’s examples. The fear of being stuck with the typical comedy and drama mask or curtains or spotlights was quickly put to rest. We knew that we had the opportunity to create a mark that would take the SLO Little Theatre into the future. We started sketching and coming up with ideas…
We explored a lot of different directions but the main concept that we agreed on was incorporating a strong typographic treatment with a bold mark. We also decided that it was important to create a mark that would somehow communicate the idea of a space. Kevin explained to us that the concept of a little theatre was to engage an audience and that the space was very important. He also said that the future SLO Little Theatre would incorporate a stage with seating that surrounded it. We thought this would be an interesting concept to play off of. We kept going and finally came up with these designs to present to Kevin… The masks were thrown in there just in case Kevin decided to go back on his word.
Kevin’s response was really positive. He had to run the comps by the board, but he assured us that he would fight for the design which conveys the theatre space with a stylized L and T…
In the end, he won the fight and the new SLO Little Theare logo is being used. We’re pretty excited about this one.
