Ardent Ethos Logo Design

My goal was to create the branding for Ardent Ethos, a passionate brand that helps IT and Digital Media professionals achieve success through courses. Specifically, the goal was to create a logo that encompassed everything about Ardent Ethos into a simple and engaging graphic. To do this, I set out to understand more about the brand, target audience, and niche to get some ideas for the design.

Ardent Ethos is a brand that offers educational content to professionals seeking to level up their skills and achieve their goals. Alongside this, they offer various products to help expedite their workflow or learn new concepts.

Ardent Ethos represents a passionate, inspirational character that values determination, education, and the will to step into the flames to achieve your goals. This burning personality is at the core of Ardent Ethos and shapes everything about them—from the tone they use to the design of their branding content.

To create the best design I can, it is crucial I understand who will be engaging with the logo the most. The design should represent what the brand embodies, as well as what the brand actually is. For example, It would not be very effective if we had a vintage-type logo for an upbeat, trendy yogurt shop.

Ardent Ethos operates in the Digital Media and IT fields meaning we are targeting individuals who are somewhat tech-savvy, value learning, and are drawn to problem-solving. Additionally, because these two fields involve modern technologies and computers we need to reflect this in the logo. Lastly, the passionate, inspirational energy of Ardent Ethos should be reflected in the logo in some way.

After going through the process of learning about the brand, its audience, and what competitors are doing in the field, I will begin brainstorming some ideas for the logo. I utilize multiple areas of inspiration across various digital platforms, as well as from my own real-life experiences.

For this project, I utilized a mindmap to generate some ideas—this is a technique where I compile a list of words related to the project and start connecting them in unique ways to come up with new ideas.

For ideation, I began sketching some ideas for the logo. After several iterations, I settled on the idea of using a flame as the core of the logo. This tied together the fiery passion characteristic of the word "Ardent".

After sketching, I brought the best designs into Affinity Designer and started playing around with some more ideas. By combining and deconstructing various ideas, we can sometimes get some interesting new ideas. For the color palette, an orange color was utilized to further support the passion and energy of the brand. In the end, the logo ideas were captured into a simple, yet interesting design based on the following:

Geometric Logo: I utilized a geometric grid and shapes to represent the tech-based, mathematically-precise characteristics of the IT fields and programming. This also gives the logo a futuristic quality that is often associated with technology.

Triangle Shape: The triangle denotes the strength and stability of the brand's—and by extension its target audience—determination, as well as the upward growth that Ardent Ethos inspires.

Flames: A more subtle design element is found at the base of the logo, which is reminiscent of a flame underneath a kiln or stove. This was brought in from the previous iteration of the logo which utilized a flame to represent the burning passion that drives Ardent Ethos and their audience.

Poppins Typeface: For the tagline and brand text, I used the typeface "Poppins". As a sans-serif typeface, it has a clear and present characteristic. Additionally, it is a geometric typeface which makes it feel very modern and unified with the logo graphic.

Overall, the project offered me the chance to look at logo design from a different perspective. I enjoyed being able to put myself in the shoes of the brand and its customers to unlock some unique ideas.