Island Hopper will be a an event presented by Special Olympics Florida as an incentive for showing your support for this great organization. The plan is to fly the winner of this prize to beautiful beach destinations from Hawaii to South America.

This is my first time really showcasing my process, so be gentle ;) but I felt it was an excellent opportunity to take you from sketchpad to vector!

I’ve always admired the aesthetic and tactile value of scratchboard illustrations and I knew this would be an excellent opportunity to experiment with that quality when creating the mark for Island Hopper. Given the tropical destinations the program offers and the very name itself my mind instantly went to seaplanes as an icon.

First, I decided to sketch out a couple of solutions for representing the water as the plane splash lands to the island paradise. I wanted to capture the feeling of excitement as you begin a new adventure. That being said, the icon became very dynamic.

Finally, I drew out the scene in full, this sketch would be used as a template to illustrate in-computer. I framed what I felt was the most ideal and efficient crop of the plane and water and made some guidelines to help keep the perspective consistent.

I chose Knockout created by Hoefler & Frere Jones for the logo type because of the versatility of its individually designed weights and widths. Experimenting with the lock-up yielded this horizontal version which has appealing proportions and switches the hierarchy so the type visually dominants the mark. Not sure but I think I prefer it this way, what do you think? :)

Well I think that about wraps it up. Hope I gave you a little insight into my logo process. I’ll try to do these more often, Mark Sunderland suggests a behind-the-scenes look at the conception, research and execution of the Wixárika Calendar made possible by partners in design Maria Rogal and Cassie McDaniel. How about it?