circular shape – continity, infinity, perfection/imperfectionearthy coloursflow, fluidity, wave, danceEnergy, Ki, PranaSimplicityZen, emptiness, moment, presenceThese come to me first when I think about the logo.Shiatsu is a work with energy, we remove the obstructions in order restore the flow of life force (Prana, Ki, Chi). Hence the flowing motion, dance etc. we also have to be present in the moment and grounded in order to create the space for clients self healing. I also think simple designs are best (less is more)
I started to draft out some ideas. I decided to use the shape of the hand, as the hands are the medium through which shiatsu is given. To create a feeling of flow and energy I used a gradient of colours. I also kept the form as simple as possible, experimenting with a variety of different styles and presentations.
In Buddhist symbolism the lotus is symbolicof purity of the body, speech, and mind as while rooted in the mud, its flowers blossom on long stalks as if floating above the muddy waters of attachment and desire. It is also symbolic of detachment as drops of water easily slide off its petals.
Me and Bazyli were mostly working together, in person. So I don’t have copies of communication between us. I found that working this way was much easier as we could make changes in real-time then and there and also allowed us to develop our relationship and understand each other better.
The ideas below, I experimented with taking the letters F and T and blending the form together. This funnily enough created a heart shape that seemed to work quite well as a ‘badge’. However, Bazyli thought that this looked more like a wedding organisers logo.
He sent across some more visual ideas to help stir things up a bit:
What we liked from these examples was the idea of imperfection. They have a much more ‘hand-made’ feel to them. They come across natural and ‘organic’, as Bazyli put it. From here I started to develop some new ideas around the idea of the ‘zen brush’ or ‘zen stroke’ – if you see below, top left, I have created a few different variations of this stroke which embodies ‘imperfection’.
I then started to take these shapes and work them into a more iconic logo. At this point we were on the right track and Bazyli was responding very positively to the ideas that I was coming up with.
After some more reflections and evaluation, Bazyli decided that he wanted to try using one of the other concepts from the designs above. I started working on these ideas:
We liked this concept as it almost captured a ‘thumbprint’ in the design. We leaned more towards the red/brown as it is more iconic of the traditional Japanese design, whilst retaining the ‘earthiness’ mentioned in the initial conversation.
I printed out some to-scale versions of this design and then mocked it up for the client to get an idea of size. I’m also due to do a small photography shoot for the client so that he has images for his new website that he will be creating.