“Design a series of corporate brand identities based on Pokémon.”

Guys? Stay with me here. When I was about eleven years old, I played a Pokémon game on a gameboy emulator on my PC, and I still think the creatures that Ken Sugimori designed are very iconic, characteristic designs. The crazy idea of doing some logotype work for them enticed my curiosity enough to actually do some work on it in my spare time. Here we go: corporate brand design, the Pokémon edition.

If you like it, please digg it.

I’ve already shown you Bulbasaur, a brand of plant chemicals. I had fun representing its poison/grass elemental types.

Onwards to a computer chip manufacturer; Magneton (Steel/Electric type).

And how about the electric company, Pikachu. Very renowned for its cute mascot and powerful slogan.

It’s not all classic brick and mortar corporations, though; Staryu is a friendly, myspace-like web 2.0 startup.

A bed and sofa company, Drowzee: (for obvious reasons, generally considered a ‘sleep’ type)

For professional grooming and spa salons, Jigglypuff is the way to go:

And last but not least; Kadabra, the psychic silverware company. Kadabra, the Pokémon, is a psychic that can bend spoons, and constantly carries a spoon around.

I’d like to take this (hilarious) trip across fictional brands to a more serious note; these are merely draft designs, made in a relaxed mood with little attention to detail. I couldn’t say this work is representative of how I’d design actual logotypes. Regardless, it was a lot of fun to design.

Sometimes, people ask me, “Hey, if you design stuff like this, how come you can’t schedule my work on a short-term basis?”. The answer is very simple; this is some free-as-a-bird design. It’s what doodling was to you when you were in school (you doodled in school, right?!). As a designer, I have a lot of fun doing my work. It is, however, important to actually have fn designing and doing what you do for a living. I enjoy doing designs that don’t have to pass the judgment of a client, or with the responsibilities of professional design. That’s why I release freeware icons, and wallpapers, and now, design logotypes for a bunch of pocket monsters.

I hope you understand.

Head over to Aza’s blog to read his great description of the process. After thorough consideration, we chose for these irresistible blue eyes. We’re calling this the semi-final, as our official deadline was the 19th, but some polishing is yet required. It also turned out that there was no vector resource for the ‘unbranded’ Mozilla globe, so that’ll require some redrawing :).

Please digg it if you have an account; we’d love as much input we can gather!

Important to take in mind here is that these are conceptual directions, and by no means representative drafts of a final logo. These sketches help determine the creative direction of the artwork.

Update: 7 sketches added! Check ‘em out at the bottom of the post.

Sketches 1-2:

1. Fiery hand or flames in the shape of a hand. Lends itself a lot better to digital mockups, presented for conceptual purposes.

2. ‘Globe’ or sphere contained by rings. Abstract concept of ‘elements’ forming one, interlocking and seamless machine.

Sketches 3-4:

3. Model Sun and Earth (the old-fashioned style). A ubiquitous pattern turned into something even a child could operate; recreating the complex movements of the universe by hand.

4. A bacterium. Ubiquitous, living organisms; it has a pattern of interconnected ‘nodes’, like Ubiquity interconnects services and elements of the Web into one thing as simple yet rich as life itself.

Sketches 5-6:

5. ‘Ball of threads’ with arrow; symbolic for internet and its many facets ‘wrapped’ into a single, dynamic package.

6. Conceptual rough sketch of ‘Smoke’ in a U shape; again a play on ‘fire’ (where’s smoke is fire, Firefox, etc.). It’s like a conceptual progression of the Enso shape.

Sketches 7-8:

‘Mercury’-like shapes of disconnected globs joining in a single material body. Solid and polished like metal, yet easily merged and separated. First concept is a more ‘flat’ representation of the concept, whereas the second concept is a more ’3D’ kind of logo which has a more dynamic feeling to it.

Sketches 9-10:

9. Sphere that ‘builds up’ out of small pieces, somewhat similar to Wikipedia Project logo. Light and small supporting elements added to give it a feeling of attraction instead or repulsion (construction vs. explosion).

10. Conceptual rough sketch of cuboid puzzle with ‘globe’ faces; clicking pieces of the internet together.

Sketches 11-12:

11. Sphere where outer layer is peeled off; revealing a shining core. Represents bloom, internet, and following a natural process to find the ‘goodness’ inside.

12: Very hard to sketch out, but a conceptual sketch of a ‘fractal’ U for Ubiquity. Not shown in sketch; rainbow-like coloring, representing ubiquitous elements ‘water’ and ‘light’ coming together to form a new, beautiful whole in a rainbow.

Sketches 13-14:

13. Once again a ‘model’ Globe, with rings. Sketch is rough; concept is a set of interlocking, concentric circles with a small 3D-offset from the globe.

14: Rainbow from cloud; Cloud representing Ubiquity, internet, Rainbow representing elements of ‘weather’ coming together to form a new whole. As previously mentioned, the Rainbow makes for an interesting ‘U’ shape.

Sketches 15-16:

15. ‘Enso’ shape of pages, linking all disconnected webpages together in a zen-like whole.

16. ‘Growing’ orb; Meant as a play on the Firefox logo; an overgrown globe. Leafs indicate it as being a plant, with the ‘organic’ material representing Ubiquity and interconnection.

Sketches 17-18:

17. Globe with ‘U’ shaped foot. Not easily sketched is the ‘electricity’ that maintains the globe in place, which represents connection and power.

18. 1-Iteration (slightly beautified) Menger Sponge-like cube, with open faces representing input. A divided, yet consistent whole.

(New) Sketches 19-20:

19. Cute little Ubiquity robot (Ubiquibot?) that ‘plugs’ into the Mozilla standard Globe; your friendly intelligence for the internet.

20. Papercraft globe with a glue bottle. Representing bringing elements together, a casual craft, and of course the internet.

(New) Sketches 21-22:

21. Ubiquitor, the robot assistant. Meant as a concept that fits well in the Mozilla website’s ‘comic’ style, and represents a ‘cute’ conceptual direction.

22. A counterweight to 16, which ‘floods’ the globe with plants, this sketch represents computer intelligence ‘wired into’ the web; a single intelligence that brings it all together.

Sketches 23-24-25:

23. Globe, bolted together in an old-fashioned way. As you can see in the inset, it might be varied upon with panels not yet ‘bolted’ into the globe, representing unifying elements of the internet with your own hands.

24. Tree growing on a globe. Very ‘natural’ and casual illustrated stylistic direction, in line with the Firefox and Thunderbird style. A very colorful concept.

25. ‘Cyber’-glove; represents the user interface and ‘wiring into’ the internet via Ubiquity.

In true Open-source style, I will be opening up the design process and posting updates on the progress of the logo design as I go along. The deadline is tight! While I have already started sketching concepts, the logo needs to be completed by January 19th. You’ll be able to follow the design as it progresses right here, so enjoy this unique look behind the scenes. Track updates here, and follow my Twitter account for more small updates. Enjoy the show!