Heartless Robot are a rad little record label from here in Perth. They’ve released a bunch of the more experimental and interesting projects from around here. When Scott from HRP approached me about designing a new logo for them, I was totally stoked (especially recalling the Bassta Pex / Gutter Guitar split 12″ limited to 100 copies, which each had original artwork by different participating artists. 100 x 1 off vinyls. For whatever reason I didn’t have time to try get involved, but yeah, such a cool idea.
From the beginning of the project I wanted to document the process as much as possible for the purpose of sharing it here.. and so here goes. As comprehensive a process recap as I could scramble together, minus a few stages in between.
Final redesigned logo:
I like to gather a buttload of visual research most of the time. I tried to gather as mixed a selection of robot references as I could, and then culled that selection down to designs I liked. Below are 2 of the collaged pages (had weeded down to about 5 pages of robot refs). I had also originally been excited at the prospect of possibly taking some inspiration / paying homage to Boris Artsybashef. Unfortunately wasn’t really appropriate though.
Style-wise, I wanted to try and avoid robot cliches as much as I could, and wanted to draw influence from some of the darker disney characters and great cartoon villains, Camille Rose Garcias dark and sweet character designs, and of course Japanese influence – aside from my own influence, Heartless Robot have a bit of a relationship with Japan (bands touring, releases, frequent visitors, etc.), so was more than appropriate.
Below, the first few rather embarrassing sketches, but can’t skimp on the bits I don’t want to show.
Not having much success with my initial doodles, I moved onto experimenting with block shapes and how they affect the character. The bodies mostly inspired by Ashley Wood, the master of bad arse bots. The feedback from Scott along the way being that they were after more of a “City Destroyer” as opposed to “C3PO”. The face design was probably my favourite part of the whole process. The dial-eyes my favourite detail.
Final Logo above, and the type I created for the logo below.
Looking good. It's quite a stylistic diversion – which reflects well on you as a designer.
Thanks for including so much of the concept, research, and design progression. I like posts like this.
Hey Nick, thanks for the feedback
. Glad you like these process posts – I'm the same.
Want to put myself 'out on the line' a bit more. Ready to be tooooooorn to shreds, in order to learn!