L.I.M.E. International is a company I am developing to market educational products. LIME stands for Learn Innovative Methods Education. These products will enhance the educational experience for students learning English as a second language.
BRAINSTORMING Last year, I worked in China developing curriculum for English language classes. During that time, I learned about their cultural representations of colors and numbers. So, when choosing the colors and wording for this company, it was all deliberate to promote the awareness of growth and success. The word “lime” in Chinese has no dual meanings and is also a favored fruit. Which is great.
I have specifically chosen greens to represent the limes and of course nature and growth. I selected a dark blue font color because of the symbol of spring and advancement that is associated in the Chinese culture. While red and gold are also symbolically positive in their culture. I did not want a Chinese symbolic product. As the idea is to bring an innovation to the country. A western product. Truthfully, I was going for a strong simple International graphic which does not insult the culture. I chose the number of lime/leaf due to the association with the five elements. Wood, fire, earth, metal, water.
DESIGN To begin, I sketched out some rough ideas on a piece of paper. 
This gave me a direction in which to start forming ideas. As I had said during the brainstorming phase, I was heading in the direction to develop the logo in a semblance of natural growth.
With the name company initials L.I.M.E. I knew I wanted to incorporate the fruit however, I did not want it to be just a lime floating around in space. I wanted it to tie into the name somehow. I started with a lime shapes as leaves and a body for the trunk using the pen tool and a rounded edge effect. But, when I began to build the graphic in Illustrator it seemed to overwhelm the space, leaving little room for the name of the company. I decided to try the round head as the dot in the “i”. And I decided I liked it better than the tree body. This also gave a space for the text of the company. Next, I wanted a bit of dimension to the limes, and so I used the pen tool to create a half lime shape with a lighter shade of green adding feather and rounded edges effects.
When choosing the font for LIME, I wanted it to be easily read and bold. I changed it between Gills San MT, Bahous and Berlin Sans. I settled on Berlin Sans because it has a bit of a unique rounding to the letters but is still highly legible. “International” is deliberately added, as I noticed in China “International” is associated with innovative modern products. You will see International Malls, International Electronics, International Schools, and other usages of the word when a modern perception is marketed. The font for “International” is Arial and I adjusted the kerning to the fit the text directly below the word “LIME”.
Here is my rough draft for the logo project and I look forward to your feedback.
Female Flying Solo 
Hey!
I really enjoyed reading over your design process and seeing your initial design ideas on paper. It helped me better understand what you’re end goal would be and how you approached your topic. Which in turn helped me understand your design now.
To start I want to say that you’re color scheme is great! Very eye catching and the fact that you incorporated some of the concepts and ideals associated with Chinese culture was very well thought out. Also, the colored border around the logo makes it really stand out. It almost reminds me of postage stamp the way it’s setup but that’s not a bad thing, because there are some truly beautiful postage stamps. Plus when I think of stamps I think of postcards which also makes me think of travel, so that’s a clever way to tie into your topic. Even if it was unintentional.
A couple of suggestions for you though, the limes around the circle upon first glance didn’t immediately say to me that it was in fact the citrus fruit. I thought it was leaves of a flower or part of a tree. Especially with them being grouped around the circle from the “I” in lime made automatically think of flowers. Perhaps adding some more detail and some shading to these shapes to give them more depth would help differentiate what the shape is. Also think about adding some type of texture since lime rinds have that textured surface.
The other thing that stood out to me was that the circle of the “I” in lime is large. It’s considerably larger than the font you chose so to me it throws off the proporations of the text and of the limes surrounding it. This is an easy fic though by simply changing the size of the text.
Otherwise, it’s a really great first draft to your logo and I look forward to seeing the final product!
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Hello! Your thought process for creating this draft logo was really easy to follow and understand, so thank you for that. I think it was great to have the explanation followed by your design, because by the time you see it you know what LIME stands for; Which the meaning is great and goes perfect with your topic and what you want this logo to be for. I really like the colors you used and the border as well, it all really comes together well. The logo as a whole is strong, but I have just a few suggestions that may help. I would suggest working with the scaling of the limes and the dot on the ‘i’ as they look too big compared to the rest of the letters. Another suggestion is to make the words ‘International’ be all caps or have some effect to them, as they look a bit toned down compared to the font used for ‘lime.’ A final suggestion would be to remove the line around the limes so they look more smooth. Overall, I think this is a great first draft, and I can’t wait to see the final result!
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Emily,
What a great start! I enjoyed reading the brainstorm process and have the ability to view your sketches drafts. What has been executed well is the L.I.M.E portion of the logo. I think you have chosen the correct font and size that I legible. I did not read if you used the align tool to proportionally space the lettering, but it looks like you have, which looks eye appealing. I also liked that you included the word “international.” The reasoning behind doing so make sense and I think should be kept in the logo. I had not realized the consistent use of “international” in China. What I suggest is downsize the limes forming the flower as well as the circle for the “I.” Compared to the rest of the logo, they seem disproportionate. I also recommend changing the color of L.I.M.E to brown which I see would bring the logo back to your original idea of having a tree trunk.
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Emily,
I love that you included your sketches on your logo. I also think it’s awesome that you did such an in-depth, cultural research about the word lime before delving into using that reference for your business.
I love that you made the word International deliberate, and I think the colors are a great choice. The only suggestions I have are making the dot on the I smaller, and making the limes around the dot smaller with more space between the I and the limes. I think in doing so, it could create more unity around this focal point, drawing the eye to the limes surrounding the dotted I. The large size makes it a little hard to distinguish the shapes.
I love the idea and I love your website! Great job!
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Thank you for all the awesome feedback! It really helps me in envisioning changes which need to be incorporated into my final logo. Many of the comments that were made were there in the back of my head, so throwing the draft out for feedback really helped me in trusting my visual instincts.
From your input the primary focus is on minimizing the graphic of limes and dot to relate more with the text and provide unity. It was also mentioned to add more elements to the limes to establish their meaning. Possibly with a pattern or color and to remove the stroke from the limes. As for the text I read in the feedback about capitalizing “International” to make it more visible or adding an effect to bring some presence to the text. It was also mentioned the possibility of changing the LIME text color to brown for a tree trunk impression.
I will begin the final phase with concentrating on the limes and dot elements to bring a visual unity to the piece. I really appreciate your time everyone and I look forward to seeing your final projects too!
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