HGXD BRANDING
Blender - Adobe Illustrator - Adobe Photoshop - Premiere Pro
What is HGXD?
HGXD is an abbreviation for Hanna Garrison eXperience Design.
In today’s context, XD is an emoticon for laughing (X represents closed eyes while D represents an open mouth). Originally, I was drawn to HGXD compared to other names because it rhymed, it was short, easy to say, and it referenced the early 2000s. I wanted to incorporate Y2K themes and the texting emoticon that was popular in that time, but what I didn’t want was to just be known as Hanna Garrison XD.
In the search for other uses of XD I rediscovered Disney XD, the television network I grew up watching. I quickly realized that I had no idea what Disney XD stood for. There were theories online saying that it stood for “Disney Xtreme Digital” which was an unrelated Disney mini-site and media player on Disney.com. However, Gary Marsh, the President of Entertainment for Disney Channel Worldwide, shot down this theory. In an interview Marsh stated that XD didn’t stand for anything and was chosen simply because “it looked cool.” I was unsatisfied with this explanation, so I took it upon myself to give it a meaning in my own brand name.
I wanted to emphasize the positive experience that I would be able to provide my clients, hence the name eXperience Design was chosen.
HGXD logo with dissolving effect. Rendered in Blender ^
eXperience Design
/ikˈspirēəns dəˈzīn/
NOUN
A design practice focused on human outcomes.
Particularly the level of engagement and satisfaction that the user derives from a product or service and the relevance of the experience to their needs and context.
BRAINSTORMING:
Like any great digital project, the research for inspiration started on the web. I surfed Instagram and created a Pinterest board, grouping together visuals I was inspired by. Creators like @hvnt.er and @excisioninverted on Instagram were big inspirations for this project. I was drawn to cyberpunk, neo-Tokyo, vaporwave, Y2K, and night-core aesthetics. These themes drive the core of the HGXD visual experience.
To the right you can see early black and white doodles of the HGXD logo. Originally, I played with the idea of adding symbols and iconography but decided against it. I stuck with a blend of chunky typography, and minimalist Y2K details in order to keep the logo as clean and simple as possible.
Black and white sketches ^
PROCESS:
After sketching out some ideas illustrated above, I went into Adobe Illustrator to design the HGXD vector logo. I created some digital sketches based on the rough sketches in my journal and played around with colors. For the color palette I decided to go for a greyscale with a pop of blue. This palette would be used in the brand guidelines. White, grey, dark grey, and black would be used for text and main background colors, while blue would be used for highlighting titles and links. I wanted to keep the palette clean and simple so it would translate seamlessly onto the website.
For the typography in the logo, I chose a bold typeface and typed out HGXD. I then converted the text to outlines so I could manually edit the points. The original typeface wasn’t as stocky as I had liked, so I customized the vector points until the type was shorter, thicker, and smoother. The original typeface was blocky and had sharp corners, so I beveled its edges to create a chunkier look. I also used the smooth tool to smooth out any awkward looking paths as I was editing. The oval ring around the logo was merged into the design using a similar technique.
When I was finished designing the HGXD logo in Illustrator, I exported it as an SVG and imported it into Blender. I extruded the flat vector, converted the curve to mesh, gave the model different reflective materials, and set up the environment. I added an environment texture to the world in order to get nice realistic reflections on the animation. I also added a blue area light below the model, so the logo would have a subtle blue sheen. I also created a second animation with a dissolving effect and a panning camera linked below. The final animations were imported into Premiere Pro and edited together.
FINAL ANIMATIONS:
