As an on-staff graphic designer (or, rather, THE on-staff graphic designer) of a museum, the repetitive nature of the work can start to grind you down. I had seen a job offer online and decided to mess with the concept, even though I wasn’t going to get the freelance gig… you know, to keep those creative juices flowing. The job was for a baby food company in one of the antipodal nations who needed a logo. I found the idea of it intriguing so I took a shot at it.
MoMath opened a new exhibit this morning – the idea of which is to enter the parameters of a basketball shot into a ball-throwing robot and allows you to try your hand at trying to replicate the shot yourself at a basket placed next to the bot’s. A computer analyses both shots – allowing you to change what you did on both your shot and the bot’s to try to correct for a miss.
The task for me was to create the logo, marketing graphics, and directional graphics (for the Ball Bot).
I’ve played with the Bot. It’s a heck of a lot of fun. I mean, it’s a robot that shoots basketballs… what’s not to like about that?
Summer is coming and with it the salvation of all parents who work full-time: summer camp. I was tasked with coming up with the logo for the summer program of the Museum to appear in promotional materials as well as the t-shirts the kids will get. (The final design can be found is on the upper right.)
MoMath has an upcoming games night (mostly board games with mathematical credibility) and needed a logo for web and other promotional materials.
The pivot point on the Q was a play on the name of the event, with the playing piece balancing out the design.
Unfortunately, neither of these designs were picked by the client as he wished to go in more of a hand-drawn, Etsy-style direction (which was executed in a subsequent iteration). At any rate, I was fairly pleased with both concepts.
I was recently hired to create a brand name, logo, and packaging for a brake pad manufacturer who wanted to start selling their product in the United States. Below I’ve included the logo concepts, final logo, and package design.
As a side note (to explain a geometrical anomaly): the traditional octagon was replaced with a hexagon to draw the eye across to the next part of the wordmark. An octagon would, as it should, stop that movement and make the logo more clunky whereas a hexagon, with its side-corners, points to the next word. Maintaining the traditional stripe and field theme of an international stop sign (not to mention the word “stop”) keeps the message clear without hurting the flow.
The designs below were created for an exhibit at the National Museum of Mathematics called “Robot Swarm,” which explores the algorithms that describe the swarming behavior of animals such as birds and insect. A video and article appearing on The Verge regarding the exhibit appears here.
These were concept designs for the logo. I’d originally been going for a “Wall-E” style design, but after speaking with the Chief of Design (Exhibit Designer) and seeing the chassis for the actual robots, I decided that a concept that was more informed by that movie’s love interest “EVE” was far more appropriate.
This was produced as a sign that was hung on the draping that surrounded the build.
The schematic for the window display appearing in the Museum’s shop: Additions.
This design was used as both the signage above the exhibit, and as the banner above the digital controls – below which appears the graphics describing the five swarming behaviors available to the museum patron to interact with (the yellow dot represents the patron).
The images below show the progression of ideas that go into a logo design. The final version was picked by the client in order to offset a possibly overly fanciful name.
The design flow (starting with a later discarded “navigational/nautical” theme then moving into a final, “diamond” theme):
The final design: 
Jason Polkovitz 