Phoniksa III • 2018
Branding materials for an Overseas Community Service Project in Hue, Vietnam
Background
I have a friend, Chandruth, whom I’ve known for more than 10 years now and we still catch-up from time to time. We would talk about business ideas, audio and technology and recently he has co-founded Nimbus UAV, a company focused on drone-related technologies.
Nimbus UAV Logo Design
When I was in Switzerland for my university summer exchange, Chandruth asked if I could create an icon which he could use for printing on his drone parts. I came up with a few designs but at that point of time, I was falling in love with iPad Pro and Apple Pencil, so I made full use of this opportunity to create a logo using the iPad Pro.
I was quite pleased with the image but since this was drawn using Procreate, it was a raster art and I don’t like the fact that it’s not infinitely resizable. My friend didn’t really like this design and I agreed that I could iterate on it. He wanted something more gloomy and dark, which would justify the ‘Nimbus’ in the name.
This time, I ventured into isometric design, which was getting quite popular these days. I delivered the ‘gloomy’ point, and I tried to draw a part of the drone with the motor attached. I’m no 3D designer and this proved too difficult for myself to execute. I submitted this design to Chandruth and he actually found it okay.
Weeks later, he came back to me and asked why the logo was ‘grainy’. I explained that the grainy bit added texture to the image, as well as gave it some shading. He understood but because his supplier complained about the graininess, I had to deliver something that could actually be used for printing. This was when I discovered Affinity Designer for iPad Pro. It uses a mix of pixel and vector art and it’s fully optimised for the iPad. I tried it for the first time and instantly fell in love with it. I got to work and after 6 hours of iterating through various designs, I finally got something I am pleased with.
Upon showing him this design, I was glad that he immediately accepted it.
Other Graphics
In the past, I also did some other graphics/branding for his drone project which he used for his drones when competing in a drone competition held in Singapore. His team represented Temasek Polytechnic, and they even managed to challenge the universities!
