The Lair began as a solution to a collectors problem of finding comics in the Greater Toronto Area. The initial idea was centered around making comics available to a newer generation of readers. Often the issue with collecting comics is being able to actually find what you're looking for. The problem may come from product availability sometimes but more often than not is due to most shops not being unorganized and keeping stock up to date with modern technology.
The Lair aimed to work against this in being reliable delivering to collectors what they're reading and new comers what they're looking for. As a start up company the Lair wanted to be aware of their audience and how to cater to them while being limited to the constraints of a start up company.
Our best approach was to start with a brand and a social channel to generate a pull for our product. As a team the first step was to create a brand identity that worked in portraying what the company was about.
At this point in the project our main goal was to create an identity that the team could get behind. This is the result of an experiment the team took part in. We set out to create a brand identity by coming back to the table with many different concepts. The process turned into a bit of an elimination game at this point as we tried to narrow down the many ideas that were brought back to the team.
As the process continued we narrowed down the choices by picking the ones that stood out to the team the most. The next step was to clean up the consolidated options and come back with a more refined idea of the brand identity. Subsequently the team put together a small survey with the following options so that a well informed decision could be made amongst the team.
The final concept for the chosen brand identity was "The LAIR comics". It was picked based on the data the team pulled from the surveys that were set up. It was not only the unanimously winner amongst the team, but also was largely chosen by the people surveyed as well.
Once this was more concretely laid out as the new brand's identity, the work to be done followed shortly after. Our first steps were to really clean up and polish the identity being presented. The Lair wasn't going to be a regular comic shop, It was setting out to be top notch as a marketable identity and the logo needed to look the part. We took a very
methodological approach to creating the logo. In the image presented you can see how the logo was mapped out before any changes were made to the typography. The lettering needed to be modified before being sliced in the way that gives this logo its distinguished look. The prototype logo to be presented was put through many testing phases via online meetings with the project manager at the time. To push this concept further, the rule of thirds was applied to the logo to make it sure it was balanced aesthetically to make it pleasing to the eye.
Some of the following phases the logo went through are showcased below. It went through many colour explorative iterations. It was important to us to keep in mind the fact that there were other factions of the business to work on as well so we were in making decisions to keep the momentum we had going.
Above are some Colour exploration we did with different types of oranges, there were a grand total of 12 but to keep the point short and sweet only 3 variations are shown. The team was already decided on the fact that the brand was going to show off a minimalist look with one colour for accentuation. The colour chosen was orange but there were many different types that were sampled and explored in depth, in terms of web accessibility and aesthetics. Below is a style tile demonstrating the look and feel of the brands online presence.
This phase came to a smooth ending point as the assets that we created would allow us to move onto building the actual website. From this point the continuation of this project was very simple; it became more about adding content to make the website feel fully alive with content.
Visit WebsiteThe final design was a website made to function as an online retail store, using all the assets made. The website currently only works as an online retail experience only for now. The project has hopes of reaching its projected margins with in a couple of years and plans to expand to a store front business as well. The Website provides all the information and services needed to start a great comic book collection. Below is a demonstrative screen capture of the websites homepage. For more information on this project and where it is today feel free to reach out at the email provided below.
If you like what you see and want to work together, get in touch!
ffernandez.designs@gmail.com