Logo Design with the Local Primary School

This weeks blog post is written by our member and volunteer Alistair, also our resident artist and designer and is based around Alistair's involvement with the local primary school in the Logo Design for the garden.

When I heard that they had to specially selected P6 class for the creativity I got quite excited. On the day, when I entered the classroom, there was much excitement! We started with why I was here? To ask their help to design a logo for the community garden that was being developed outside the school, this logo would be used on all publicity and digital media.

The plan was to talk about, “What is a community garden” after a slow start the answers started flowing; growing, nature, vegetables, fruit, community, socialising, calm spaces, mental health, educational etc.

The next question “what is a logo or a symbol” so I began to draw symbols and asks them to identify them, first I drew a capital A, then I drew a heart symbol, the Red Cross symbol, the Ying Yang symbol and even the Nike logo. I then showed them some Pictish symbols and previous symbols that I had designed, we had good conversations about what each symbol meant, so they had a good understanding.

Now they got started on the designs, some started straight away others struggled! I explained to them not to stress, what I was asking them was something they had never thought of before, so take your time till something comes to mind. I also told them not to worry about it neatness as it was more important to get the designs down, I explained that I would probably use several ideas to create the final design.

Once they were settled into the drawings I had more time to look around at the artwork that decorated the walls and ceiling! This was not just credited to the pupils but to their teacher, who I suspect is highly creative! Without her input, this project would not have been so successful.

As you can see from their many designs, the circle is very dominant (I found it fascinating how the circle dominated the garden designs we got from the school!) (Also uninfluenced by me!) There must be something in the human psyche that attracts us to the circle, it also seems to dominate primitive art, the earliest forms of Mark making were basic circles. Anyway from the many designs, I have isolated 4 design concepts; one is a circle with flower petals, another is a Sun logo, both could have symbols in the petals or the sunbeams? Of the other 2, one has symbols holding hands around the outside the other has wording around the outside. I think my favourite is the one with symbols of people, nature, wildlife, fruit etc, in one of the pupil's drawings they have people and vegetables all as characters holding hands, this might be a good idea with “Fintry community garden” written in the central part?

As colour is concerned I like the one with the pupil has done a rainbow surrounded by a light blue colour. Once we have a final design I could ask again about colour, so if we concentrate on the design just now, let me know what you think! Take care speak soon…