Indianapolis Helicopters

Creating the logo for this company was a very detailed process. After meeting with the client to get an idea of what they had in mind for the logo, we were able to determine that they were leaning towards a pictorial mark rather than just a word mark. So we set out to create a variety of designs using helicopters from different angles, as well as just the helicopter blade in the logo. The client flies a specific type of helicopter so they requested that helicopter in the logo be modeled off of their helicopter’s distinct shape. When we first met, the name of the company wasn’t set in stone yet. They had planned on calling it Indy Helicopters, but was up for trying different names to see if there was one that fit better. Below are a few of the logos from the first round of designs:  

After reviewing these with the client, we were able to narrow it down to a couple favorites, made a few tweaks to those, and began a color study. The client’s helicopter is mostly red, with some navy and gold as accent colors and black blades, so these were the colors they preferred to be used in the logo. We also continued to test the different names with this new set of designs. We began to notice that the text “Indy Helicopters” didn’t work in all of the designs we were using. Yes, it seemed to work well in the logos with all of the text in one line, but in the logos where the text was broken up into two lines, the footprint of the text seemed awkward because of the difference in word length. So we brought in the name “Indianapolis Helicopters.” A bit longer, but fit much nicer together. This next round of designs also better set the font choice. We decided on a condensed, sans-serif font to keep with the modern, yet sophisticated vibe of the business. Below are some of the versions from this round of designs:

Once the client narrowed it down to one design, they requested another color study eliminating the maroon from the design and sticking with the blue, gold and grey. They also weren’t quite sure of the font or whether or not to use italics, so we tried a variety of light and bold weights, as well the “Indianapolis” part italicized:

After seeing this revision, the client realized that matching the blue and gold to the chopper’s colors just didn’t quite look the same in a logo, and wasn’t sure that these were the colors they wanted to be tied to for everything. So in the final revision, we actually went back to a previous logo design that has the “IND” of Indianapolis overlapping the helicopter to play off of the airport code for Indianapolis. We also ended up making the logo all one color, but providing different colors to be used in different places so they weren’t tied to one specific color. Below are the finals: