Responsive: TEAM IMMORTALS OCR - logo & apparel design

 

I was approached by OCR (Obstacle Course Running) team 'Immortals' initially way back at the beginning of September, about the design of a new logo for their teams apparel & promotional material. It was clear from the start that they were after something heavily inspired by the film 300, and the Immortal characters mask in-particular.Splattered, bloody type treatment was also requested. So it was definitely an homage to the film, but the challenge was to try & not make it look too much like a lame rip-off.

I found myself working somewhat backwards with this brief. I hadn't done any substantial vector work for a long while so i went a bit mad with it , going headlong into lots of detail, knowing full well that it wasn't going to be practical to use as a logo, but then gradually stripping back the layers of detail until it resembled a more 'logo' looking design that i knew would be effective, wether large-scale or at letterhead size, on any platform.

Immortals presentation boards

I felt i was probably a bit generous with the amount of drafts and mocks i provided, but that's always been my usp, or flaw, which ever way you slice it. If I'm giving clients a headache from having to decide between a few designs they really like and can't make a decision on, then I'm happy, as was the case here after i'd send my first lot of logo drafts; 

"Ian you legend!! they are all epic! how the hell I'm gonna choose is a mystery!!.Lloyd Peacock, Immortals OCR CEO. 

As with a lot of projects i've worked on, i got the feeling that the final product the client would end up making wouldn't really match up to the proposed design mock-ups that i'd produced. For one, when they indicated that the print for the t-shirt could be placed anywhere, and at any size i immediately raised my eyebrow as i know that doing full print t-shirt designs, especially on sleeves and shoulders is tricky and expensive in just one colour, let alone the two colour designs i'd provided. They'd had a bit of a grumble about my quote (which they didn't request until i'd submitted the designs) which tells me that they might not have much of a budget at the moment, especially as i ended up charging far, far less than i should have for the amount of work i churned out. But for projects like this its not about the money for me, to a point. If my work is getting printed onto something, getting worn by and seen by plenty of people then that's usually a swinging factor even before a fee has been agreed on.You never know, they might've got some sponsorship money from somewhere? 

It was a bit of slow burner and designs weren't actually finalised until December. Despite a couple of requests for photos of the printed product out in the real-world I've yet to see if it exists in any form. I can only hope that it's proudly adoring that bunch of obstacle course climbing lunatics at various Warrior Run events around the country…