Crumb Creative – pretty awesome name I think you’ll you agree, is a small, family run business based in Basingstoke, Hampshire providing a range of homemade cakes, cupcakes, cookies, sweets and desserts. Crumb Creative approached me in May 2013 looking for a brand new company logo; having only started the business in April 2013 they had no existing brand identity, no company stationery and no way of advertising. Their logo would be the base on which all of their promotional marketing would be built, so it was crucial I learnt as much about their business as possible to be able to design a logo that captured who Crumb Creative are.
From the first moment we spoke it was obvious how much they enjoyed what they did, they were so passionate about baking and made it sound like a lot of fun and I wanted to design a logo that expressed that. Because of the success of both the Hummingbird Bakery and Primrose Bakery in recent years cooking has become more popular than ever, “cool” even, especially cakes and cupcakes. The key would be to make Crumb Creative stand out from the competition rather than becoming another artisan bakery, which my research seemed to show to be the current trend.
As with any logo I design I wanted to try and offer something different, something non-cliché. As I already had the idea of making the logo fun and colourful I started to sketch some initial designs. Because Crumb Creative was a new business I wanted to create a logo that would be flexible enough to progress with the company as it grew. Using imagery of a slice of cake or a cupcake would be too restrictive and a chef’s hat or cooking utensils would be too traditional and wouldn’t capture the colourful and fun approach of the business.
Whilst doing my research I found some alphabet cookie cutters which reminded me of being a child, baking at home with my mum and all the fun I had decorating them with different coloured icing and sprinkles. I thought it would be really cool to have a logo that looked like it had been cut from dough and baked in the oven instead of on a computer screen. I started to draw out the letters of Crumb Creative using these cutters as guides and made a few alterations where necessary and until I was happy with how they looked. I tried out different amounts of icing until I was happy with the overall balance. Finally I added some sprinkles to give the logo a bit more life and presented it to Crumb Creative. They loved the design; the only changes they wanted to make were to some of the icing colours, which was no problem.
Whilst I was working on the logo designs Crumb Creative had thought up the strapline “never half baked!” which I thought was brilliant. This was added beneath the logo and left to cool on a baking tray for 15 minutes… actually that’s a total lie, a final proof was sent to the client which they gave tow thumbs up to and their logo was ready to show the world.
