After decided on refocusing and rebooting their independant publishing house, Alex Russell contacted me in order to find a new look for Placeholder Press. After an initial chat, we decided on straying far from the initial logo design – which prominently featured a large red X, to find something a bit less threatening and a bit more fitting of the work they featured. We settled on a cutout design, as it would literally be a place being held for the author. Originally I designed two distinct first drafts, as seen below:
The first image, which I called “fluid”, was a simple, stylised polaroid, which harkened to the DIY nature of the publishing house. The latter, which I named “chaos”, utilised a confetti like smattering of lines to indicate the chaos of everyday life, contrasting with an almost polaroid-like cutout. The latter design was preferred by Alex, however we agreed that the lilac (used primarily as a placeholder colour – no pun intended) made the image look too much like a meditation app. After ditching the colour, returning to a simple monochome finish and some final adjustments, here is what we ended up with:
Eden MW 