By: Jacqui Wiens
During early April 2011, Brendan Droppo, an Algonquin graphic design student, was completing his compulsory internship at Ove Design in Toronto, working on ideation and concept generation for new client projects.
At the same time, Algonquin was beginning a rebranding project. Some of the work of the rebranding was handled by Ove Design.
One of the changes Ove Design was involved in included a reimagining of the college’s logo.
“When I learned that we would be working on a new rebranding project for Algonquin College, my jaw dropped,” said Droppo. “The timing was impeccable.”
The team working on the Algonquin project had several designers and a lot of different concepts were discussed. Many of the changes were subtle and easy to overlook if you weren’t specifically aware of them.
“At the time there seemed to be a focus on a revolutionary design,” said Droppo.
Droppo says he started thinking about whether Algonquin would like the
revolutionary designs. Designers try to give clients a lot of options, something revolutionary, evolutionary, and something that fits in the middle.
“The motif of my concept was simple,” Droppo said. “What could the old logo evolve or grow into?”
The major changes between Algonquin’s old logo and Droppo’s concept are a change from a straight line to a curved line, and an update to the font from the ‘retro’ style to something more modern.
“It was deemed a strong concept in the eyes of the Creative Director and was therefore one of three options presented to Algonquin College,” said Droppo.
After his internship ended, Droppo found out that the college seemed to prefer his
design, but they decided to delay the rebranding for one more year and he didn’t hear any confirmation about which design would be used.
“I caught my first glimpse of it on the Algonquin College website a year later (during the summer of 2012), Droppo said. ‘It’s paid huge personal dividends seeing my concept go the distance and now adorn everything at the college, it’s a dream come true – an amazing experience.”