Developing The Development Set’s Logo
The story behind the visual identity of Medium’s newest publication.
“The Development Set” is quite a mouthful. It is also rather unwieldy as a publication name to design a logo around—two stubby 3-letter words bracketing the behemoth “D-e-v-e-l-o-p-m-e-n-t.” This didn’t deter us, though, from setting out to create a strong and distinctive visual brand for the new Medium publication.
From our earliest discussions with editor Sarika Bansal, it was important to convey the idea of global health and development without resorting to tired and offensive visual clichés. Working with freelance art director Erick Alexander Fletes, we started out exploring a bunch of different ideas in black-and-white sketches, eventually landing on three ideas we were most excited about.
Here are three versions of the first concept:
This concept builds the letters and words of the publication name out of a series of interconnected dots in a grid. These could be interpreted as connections being made—both human connections and infrastructure. Or as building blocks or construction implements, joining together to form a beautiful and cohesive whole, larger and more complex than any single dot or span.
We saw in the second concept, above, many different interpretations. The simple geometries could be the sometimes uneven and unequal steps on the path to development. They could also be an aerial birds-eye view of a city or urban development, with buildings and structures rising at different heights. Or they could make up a stylized chart or graph, quantifying the many factors of growth and development.
Lastly, we developed a third concept (above) with more tangible representations of global development: crops, livestock, wells and resources, and housing/infrastructure.
After presenting these three initial directions to the wider team, we felt that all three had strong merits, and decided to move forward with the whole lot to the next stage—working with color, and designing an abbreviated avatar to accompany the full logo.
Concept 1:
Concept 2:
Concept 3:
After this stage of experimenting with color and the smaller icon for each concept, a clear favorite emerged. Concept 1 was feeling too rigid, too technical, and like it may be a logo representing software development rather than issues around real human communities and growth. Concept 3, on the other hand, began to feel too on-the-nose, or like it may be a logo for a summer camp or rural service project. We also worried that the very specific iconography in concept 3 might clash with the photographs and illustrations we would be featuring in the publication. In the end, #3 felt like an illustrative rather than a design solution.
We were falling in love with concept 2, which had the right balance of structure and playfulness, and a certain human touch in its randomness, without feeling scattered or unfocused.
Having settled on our winner, the next step was to fine-tune the color, type, and styling. We stuck with a limited color palette instead of a broader spectrum, to avoid the association of building blocks—looking like a logo for early childhood development rather than global development.
And then, finally, we tested the different options in situ, against sample content, as the logo and avatar would appear in context on the site:
After much deliberation, we settled on a warm red-orange color scheme, which felt urgent without feeling medical (emergency red or hospital blue), and lively without feeling juvenile. Thus, voila! Our final visual identity for The Development Set on Medium:
