Parametric Logo Generator

Project Details

During my time at NEIA I was frequently tasked with creating custom variations of the schools logo for different marketing and branding applications. Due to the frequency of these tasks and the amount of variations I would have to create, I created a custom script that could easily make variations on the logo for different use cases quickly and efficiently.

tools

Rhino
Grasshopper
Adobe Illustrator

role

Logo design
Parametric Design
Branding & Marketing

Timeline

1 Week

Team

Nicholas Tamas

problem

Since most of the school’s merchandise is created in house using student accessible equipment, the logo variations would have to be usable across a large variety of applications. These applications could vary widely from custom signage to personalized gifts for incoming students or faculty.

NEIA’s logo is complicated and there is a constant need for many variations of it to be created for the marketing and branding of internal and external facing projects.

How do I quickly and efficiently make variations on the school's logo for asset generation?

A few examples of how the existing logo is used to create in house designs.

Goals

Needs to quickly create variations of the logo in regards to shape, color, and size.
Finished logos need to be vector based designs so they are compatible with the different organizational workflows (ie laser cutters, vinyl cutters, ect.).

An example of a custom logo that was made for the NEIA Hydroponics Gardens.

impact

The completed script was able to create vector based variations for the different manufacturing applications available at NEIA including: print, vinyl cutting, laser cutting, stenciling, ect.

The vector based outputs of the script also allowed it to be used with the schools vendors to create things like banners and print media.

A few examples of how the existing logo is used to create in house designs.

development

Parametric Script Building

All work and testing was done in Rhino / Grasshopper and required a good amount of trial and error experimentation to get right. Grasshopper is a parametric modeling plugin for the nurbs based CAD tool Rhino. It allows users to generate scripts to produce 2D and 3D designs based on changing parameters.

icon for Grasshoppper

final designs

For the final design I developed three scripts. The first, simply replaces the existing circles of the original logo with polygons where the polygon type and scale are customizable. The second, builds on the first script but allows the user to inscribe a second polygon (like a circle) within the first polygon. The third script was the most complicated, and allows the user to dynamically change the scale of the polygons that comprise the logo by utilizing a point attractor.

From left to right: script 1, script 2, script 3

reflection

The scripts worked well and I was able to utilize them to speed up my workflow for creating tool paths, CAD assets, and 2D designs. One thing I would like to have improved would be to make it so that the script worked as a stand alone logo generator independent of Rhino / Grasshopper. Right now the script only works if the user has access to Rhino 3D which is not free software and does have a learning curve in order to perform basic operations. A standalone version would not have these barriers to entry and would be usable for everyone across the organization.

case studies

playground

contact

contents