What’s behind the logos: The Studio Story (11)

C: Sarah, do you remember the first logo you had to design for Studio? When was it and what were the circumstances?

S: James and I had been discussing the possibility and logistics of him tutoring groups of students instead of him working for a school full time. He is an educationalist through-and-through and had a really strong idea of how he could provide students with intellectual development, and at the same time teach in a way that made him happy and fulfilled.  We had a huge table squeezed against the wall, under a window in an area we referred to as ‘the nook’ in our Hongmei Road apartment with two computers side by side and quite a lot of clutter, coloured pens, blank paper, sketches and jottings.  As the prospect of actually doing this progressed we knew what we were doing, but were unsure of how to present it to others. We had discussed it for many weeks and months, but how were we to transmit the essence of it to others?  There were many naming ideas but I can’t remember any of them now except Studio. The word came to one of us… I can’t say who… and immediately we knew that was it! Studio conveyed small group, creative space, participatory and not traditional ‘classroom’, a place where children would be happy to learn. As well as this, studio means ‘I study’ in Latin and as a final point we liked the sound of the word. There may have been some high fiving!

I tried out different fonts and we discussed capitals and lower case and eventually came up with:

We chose red because it is the colour of progress, as well as a lucky, positive colour in China and elsewhere, and we added the strapline ‘think more’ to this logo.

One of our first Studio students looked thoughtfully at the strapline ‘think more’ and said, “Yeah, at [an alternative learning location] it is more like… ‘sit more’” How we laughed! This is just the sort of engagement and lateral thinking and fun we love at Studio!

Somewhere along the way, after living with this logo for a while, we changed it to upper case and replaced the strapline ‘think more’ with the word education. To me, these changes make the logo look cleaner and more professional. It reflects the evolving personality of Studio. We do still ‘think more’ but perhaps that is a given now and doesn’t need to be in the logo.

C: What a touching story. So very nostalgic. When was the second and third? Was there a regular interval or did it all happen haphazardly? Are you ever constrained by the style of the first logo, or do you always give yourself free reign when designing new logos?

S: Just when Studio was running well and our classrooms had been decorated, James asked for a logo for a Drama School. He asked for SSSD, he loves acronyms (BELLA, SALA etc.), but I wasn’t sure. I thought the logo should be clearer. We also discussed whether the word ‘the’ should be included and whether the school should be called the ‘Shanghai’ or ‘Studio’ School of Speech and Drama. I put together a few different designs with different wording and colour options and together with James and David discussed the merits of each, eventually deciding on:

This logo works, but I don’t like how small the “school of speech and drama” is – this can be problematic if the logo is too small, but the shape and colour of the logo are distinctive so it works for now… there is room for improvement in the future.

Actually, I spent a while looking at famous drama school logos for inspiration.

Next came SALA.  I really thought there was no need for more logos!  James just asked for something quick… I think this logo was used at first:

But this was soon changed to:

which is much stronger. There was no need for a box and the grey was not working!

Miguel had developed the Kids Canon program and logos which were really different to the initial Studio Education logo. In fact, in all their distinctiveness, they work incredibly well with the rest of the family, which was just a happy accident that now we can't imagine living without.

 

C: When did you start to realise that you were at the top of a logo family, that they need to correspond and each other and be in harmony? Did you ever attempt to revise the earlier logos for consistency and harmony?

S: The Global Learning tour logos correspond to and echo with each other well.

C: Originally you were not keen about “authentic” in “Authentic Shanghai”. You said if it was authentic, then there was no need to say so. What changed your mind?

S: I wasn’t familiar with the concept of Authentic Shanghai when I was asked to create a logo for it. It sounded salesy, and shallow… It sounded strange to me at first, however the use of the word authentic was so enthusiastically championed by the course creator and leader that it began to make sense.

C: Have you had a collaborator for this design work? Is it better to work solo or with others?

S: James was a collaborator in the beginning and he really did sketch his vision for The Story of England logo on a napkin. Probably in O’Delice on Hongmei Road!

C: Do you have anything new in the pipeline?

S: Light Bites at Studio is all I can disclose right now.

—— To be continued —— 

These stories are told from Studio perspective. Every family has its own story with Studio. We’d like to hear and publish yours too. Please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

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