A rare Yellow Pencil win for a logo is about more than just good design
What makes a logo worthy of winning a Yellow Pencil? For Mitka, a new brand of aerosol spray paint in Ukraine, it was a question of a straightforward creative idea from agency Madcats, executed with simplicity and strength. Here, Madcats’ Vik Vatamaniuk talks about the creation of a bold and memorable logo.
At first glance, Mitka’s logo makes an immediate impression. It’s a clever idea: the shape of the word representing the familiar shape of a can of spray paint, and the bold lettering itself creating a visual link through to the quality and solidity of the paint inside. When spotted on a crowded shelf, Mitka’s branding will certainly catch the eye among rows of rivals.
Mitka, Madcats Agency
But what’s the magic formula for designers looking to create a logo that packs a punch? According to Vik Vatamaniuk, design director at Madcats, this was a process that went far beyond design alone. He told us about the cross-functional collaboration that went into the award-winning logo for Mitka, and about what other creatives can learn from this work.
Strategy is the best brief for creatives
Vatamaniuk says that it’s not all that common for agencies in Ukraine to take on a strategy-first approach to creative work. But providing a solid foundation of strategy was a method that paid dividends for both Madcats and Mitka. “We think that good strategy is the best brief,” he says. “It makes it easier for us to present our creative concept to the client, and it helps us to see the process as one whole thing with different elements.”
For Mitka, the strategy in question was based around the word ‘futuristic’, with the design that followed focusing on combining a sense of the futuristic with a simple, less-is-more approach. “This helped us make sure the visual design was simpler, and bolder,” Vatamaniuk explains.
Naming goes a long way, too
We tend to think of branding work, and logos in particular, as being visual exercises first and foremost, but working on the Mitka logo gave Vatamaniuk some new insight about how a good logo can involve much more than just great work from the design team.
“As a designer I always saw projects like this as design projects, most of all,” he explains. “For me, design was the biggest part of a branding project like this. But now I realise that actually, design is quite small in the whole process.”
Mitka, Madcats Agency
According to Vatamaniuk, once the strategy for the brief was in place, naming was the next step on the road to the creation of a prize-winning logo. The name ‘Mitka’, which means mark or symbol in Ukrainian, turned out to be a jumping-off point for design exploration. “Shout out to our copywriters,” he says. “At the point when they developed the name ‘Mitka’, we didn’t yet know its visual potential. But once we started on the design stage, we realised that the word itself is actually quite strong.”
What Vatamaniuk himself learned from working on this logo was that design is only one component in a branding project like this one, and it works best alongside strategists and copywriters who can work collaboratively. “I realised that a good project needs a good team that consists of all these different kinds of specialists."
The best ideas can be described simply
After the name was in place, the design team at Madcats started with a very simple concept, one that didn’t even rely on visualisation from the beginning: a word, printed on a can of paint. “We like to start our design process this way,” Vatamaniuk says. “Because then we can discuss it as a team, and push it further before we start to visualise it.”
Vatamaniuk and the design team at Madcats agreed that the name ‘Mitka’ had visual potential in this way, and could perhaps be printed on the can with no need for other adornment or detailing.
The result is an undeniably bold and memorable logo that stands out – the whole front of the can taken up with the brand name. “It’s the biggest logo on the shelf,” Vatamaniuk says with pride. “And it fulfils the most common dream of clients everywhere: to make the logo bigger.”