PopSlice is an online portfolio building application built by the folks at SemiBig Creative Industries, whom I’ve been working on and off with for a while now. I was excited when they asked me for some branding ideas as I’ve found I appreciate more and more the foundation of process in problem-solving challenges that are inherent in branding projects.
My initial thoughts on the idea of ‘PopSlice’ were distilled down to classy, sophisticated and fresh. I wanted to uphold the quality of professional work on the site as well as the site being a pool of creative talent. I also wanted these qualities to be part of the typography as opposed to an icon or logo. I decided that unique blend of a slab serif and script would be a great fit. Inspiration and reference material was gathered into Evernote. The more material I gathered, the better I could get an idea of how this will take shape. Once I felt comfortable with the amount of reference material, I went to the sketch pads and started drawing it out.
Initial sketches:
After some refinements, I used some tracing paper to see what the letterforms would look like with a thicker weight.
Using a grid sketch book, it made very easy to transfer this into Illustrator:
From here, it was just a matter of playing with the strokes to get to a weight that felt right.
Fixing some legibility with a few of the letterforms.
A few variations:
