01
What first struck me about the original logo is that it didn’t feel condensed as much as it felt squished. This is most prominent in the lowercase “e”. I also felt that the logo could be made a bit bolder—the original weight felt a little indecisive. If you compare the two, you’ll notice many changes were made to the letterforms, though the most dramatic changes can be seen in the lowercase “g”, lowercase “a”, and lowercase “e”.
02
When you compare individual letterforms you get a better sense of some of the changes that were made. The original “g” looks almost as if it is italicized to the right because the lower bowl doesn’t extend far enough to the right. When you look at the new letter, you may think I overcompensated, but in widening the lower part of the letter dramatically I also created more balance in the whitespace between the “g” and “W”. The ear of the “g” (the little bit at the top) now also follows the angle of the “W”. The original “e” has a compressed ovular look about it and I worked to fix that by plumping it up a bit in the “shoulders and hips” (not correct type terms, but you know what I mean!)
03
One of the concerns that I addressed was making sure the new logo retained as much real estate on the magazine cover as the original. Here you can see the old logo and new logo side by side, and while the new logo doesn’t have quite as much verticality, it has just as much impact because of the bolder weight.
04
In the initial round of exploratory, I showed three options: One that was quite conservative and close to the original, one that was a bit “warmer” (adding swash exit strokes to the letters to make them more playful), and one that took inspiration from leafy elements, since much of the EatingWell’s content is based on healthy eating and vegetable-heavy dishes. The final logo borrowed elements from the first and second of these options, and additional refinements were made.
05
We went several rounds trying to figure out the best approach for social media use and for formats that required a less horizontal logo. These are just a few of the assets I created, though I don’t believe any of them are currently in use. EatingWell had been using a small apple illustration in a few applications, hence why you see the logotype in an apple (which I redrew) here.
06
This is definitely one of the more subtle rebrands I’ve worked on to date. I believe that the changes we made did a lot to give the magazine a more contemporary and polished feel and, along with all of the other design changes James has implemented, will aid in widening the magazine’s audience.
-