Seven sheets of marks: where the ANVE logo stands
Twenty-nine reference logos, fifteen wordmarks, ten symbols — and the two directions still alive.
The ANVE logo is not decided. This entry is the honest state of it, because a brand that's being built in public should show the drafts, not only the answer.
All of the exploration lives in one place, as numbered sheets. Each sheet is generated from a parametric script — stroke weight, blade count, cut angle, letter width and spacing are all arguments — so a direction can be re-cut in minutes rather than redrawn.
The sheets
| Sheet | What's on it |
|---|---|
| 01 — Reference board | 29 logos from companies we measure ourselves against, pulled from their own sites. Trademarks belong to their owners; reference only. |
| 02 — Wordmarks | 15 constructed ANVE wordmarks. Drawn geometry, not a typeface. |
| 03 — Lockups | 12 lockups pairing an earlier figure mark with Inter Black. |
| 04 — Directions | First pass at wordmark + mark systems. |
| 05 — Marks | 10 symbol directions, each with a stated construction rule. |
| 06 — Aperture | 12 variations on the aperture mark. |
| 07 — Slice | 12 variations on the slice mark. |
What got rejected, and why
An early direction traced a four-stroke figure from a sketch. Paired with a heavy geometric sans it read as two different companies in one lockup — the figure was hand-drawn and warm, the type was industrial. It's gone.
A first set of abstract marks went the other way: they were consistent but weak. Shapes without a stated rule. If we can't say in one sentence how a mark is constructed, it doesn't survive the next round.
If we can't say how a mark is built, it doesn't survive the next round.
What's alive
Two directions: the aperture — an opening, a lens, a way in — and the slice — a plane cut through a solid, the "every layer" idea made literal. Both have twelve variations on their sheets, and both are judged the same way: at 22px, at 16px, and knocked out of a tile. A mark that only works at poster size isn't a mark.
Until one of them wins, the wordmark is the word. Set in the site's own typeface, tight, uppercase. It turns out that's not a compromise — most of the companies on sheet 01 do exactly this.
