Near Water
For a project I had to create a company. When I was sketching logos, I came up with the name Near Water. Near Water would be an organization and stylistic brand to help raise money for the following foundation, Surfrider Foundation. The Surfrider Foundation is a real organization that helps people in their local areas with beaches that help raise money to restore and keep our beaches as well as our ecosystem/ocean life healthy and maintained. So with this brand I decided to create merchandise and a symbol to reflect their work and also raise money while getting a simplistic icon out to correlate to their cause. It could be sold in surf shops around beach areas that have the foundations nearby. This would target customers such as ocean advocates, surfers, beach residents such as “locals” and anyone willing to donate (so it is open to the public). This would start in New jersey where I am from and eventually branch out along the coast and then the world pertaining to where the organization falls. Being from Toms River and going away to school, anywhere “near the water” felt like home. Which would ultimately become its’ tagline.
Logo Process
The thumbnail sketches I had come up with all contained either a drop or wave to exemplified the water aspect correlating to the existing name and the organizations I would like to work with. Stylistically I believe a simple design has been an up and coming style in today’s media culture. As far as colors I was thinking black and white or shades of blue and teal. This logo would be used to sell merchandise to donate to these nonprofit organizations that do so much for our beaches and sea life. Brands that might be similar such as, Ivory Ella, which is a clothing brand with an elephant icon that donates money to saving elephants from near extinction and protecting their lives also makes a brand called Shelly Cove which focuses on sea turtle protection. There seem to be no major competitor companies in my area and that have ties to the Surfrider Foundation but there are brands that may have a stylistically similar design. Similar designs can be correlated with Billabong and Quicksilver for the sole fact that there is a wave in their logos and they also give off a surfer vibe with their clothing. My company sets apart from these companies because we donate and my symbol is not as corporate and much more comforting than their hard edged looking waves. In the end, what I am looking to get out of this up and coming company is to give back to a place that has given so much to me.