The new Logo for Digiversity.tv

When I asked my buddy Mark Eimer, from Mark Eimer Creative, to come up with a new logo for Digiversity.tv, he hung up the phone immediately. I called him back, but I got the busy signal...for days. I think he blocked me, so I emailed him, instead. I could sense his reluctance to get involved by his reply, which simply read: “What do you want?”

I again told him I needed a logo for the new Digiversity.tv and asked if he would be willing to do it for me, for free, and with no praise whatsoever.

For whatever reason, he agreed to do it.

Editor's Note: The only truth in the above paragraphs is that Russell asked Mark to design a new logo and he said yes. The rest is pure embellishment. We regret any distractions this may cause for the readers.

I gave him little direction. I told him the correct spelling of Digiversity.tv and what I had planned for the content of the new site. 

That’s it. 

I’ve learned over the years, when art directing, less is better. It creates an environment for new and fresh ideas. There’s a quote I like, which is:

Micromanaging gives you microvision.

In a matter of a couple of days, I got three ideas back from Mark and one was clearly our next logo. He nailed it, in my opinion. 

The other two were terrible (this isn’t true, either).

One thing Mark didn’t know about our plans for Digiversity.tv was that there would be three learning levels: essential, advanced, and power user. His new design played right into that with the three dominant dots above the letters, connected with a single line.

The original logo used the colors you see here in the site, but just to be sure, we played with a variety of other color options. We kept coming back to the original color palette.

Yes, we had a logo.

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Julia took it and ran. 

As you look at the site and the videos, the dots and color palette help tell the brand story. They are everywhere. Not just for visual satisfaction, but as a road map, as well. I suspect I’ll have it tattooed on my arm so it’s even more prevalent in the videos.

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Cyan

The main role of the Cyan is to signify episodes that we consider essential learning. This is not to be confused with “beginner” or “basic.” Our thought here is that even if you’re a beginner, there are things you need to know in order to be effective as a designer. So even if the content of the episodes are more challenging than “beginner” level, they are important enough that we think you should  muscle through them and master the topic.

If you are a veteran user, it may still be beneficial to watch essential episodes, as features change with upgrades, we show a hidden feature, or maybe we show a way to use a feature that’s different than how you use it.

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Orange

When you see this color related to an episode, you are now watching what we consider to be advanced. So you’ve turned up the gas a bit and you’re now seeing topics that take you to the next level as a designer. These topics may not be essential, in that a designer could work without knowing them, but by understanding these lessons and implementing the techniques into your work, you may work faster, improve quality, or have other benefits you didn’t enjoy before.

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Dark Blue

Click on episodes designated with this color and you’re ready to be a power user. Go for it! These episodes contain techniques that may be unique to certain workflows, or seldom used, but when you need them, they could make such a huge difference that heads will explode. So be careful.

It’s possible that a series has episodes from each of the levels. Illustrator Kindergarten, for example, is mostly essential, but there are a few episodes that are advanced. You could skip them if you feel you’re not ready, and still get the essential learning from the Series. We haven’t designed a series, yet, that would have episodes in all three learning levels, but we’re hopeful we can pull that off. It’s a small dream of ours.

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When you look at the site, you can see the video thumbnails immediately show you the level of the episode. While watching, you can see the lower thirds and introduction also reinforce the learning level of the episode. There are other plans for uses of the colors and dots in the future, but it’s too early to share them right now. Sorry. #topsecret.

Another idea that came up, thanks to the pronounced dots in the logo is the tag line: “There is no “I” in Digiversity.tv.” It makes no sense, but we like it. We want it on a mug...and a shirt...and maybe a koozie. 

So thank you Mark Eimer for a job well done.

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