A Peak into the Process: Designing the Secret Sushi Social Logo

Every 6 months or so, Secret Sushi hosts an event called the “Secret Sushi Social”. These events bring people together for a fun, shared experience with proceeds from the event going to a good cause, usually a nonprofit or charitable organization. Although not completely different from other networking events, the “Secret Sushi Social” traditionally includes a touch of social media related fun and a handful of engaging things happening during the event that keep the energy high throughout the evening.

As these events have been getting larger and with the latest event happening just around the corner, the need for better visual branding also grew. The branding would be different each event, based on the theme, but the logo would be consistent. Adam, the founder of Secret Sushi Creative, and I throughly discussed that the overall feeling of the branding needed to be friendly and business casual. Some other requirements included that the logo be representative of the event and that it should not communicate a restaurant (sometimes people think Secret Sushi serves sushi without providing more information).

I began sketching a type only solution based on previous marketing materials and realized that would not sufficiently communicate what the events were all about. It may have been a path that could have been somewhat successful but it wouldn’t have covered all of the requirements. A logo mark (an icon or image that accompanies the type in a logo) would be needed in order to communicate the event more.

I began with the idea of communication and people talking to each other. I thought of people talking to each other that have never met before. Like fish in separate fish bowls.

Then I began to think why are they in fish bowls? People meet people they know also at this event. So then I created a sketch that had two fish talking to each other in the same waters.

After doing more logo sketches and not really getting farther on the idea, I started generating more ideas in my head. I kept thinking about the words social, talking, a gathering of people. Then out of nowhere, Norman Rockwell’s painting “Gossip” came to mind.

Although the painting symbolized gossip which is not something people associate with something positive it did have a “social” quality to it. It sparked a new direction I could take with the logo mark.

I began sketching people’s heads, smiley faces somewhat reminiscent of the yellow happy face that Walmart uses. For some reason I was still more fascinated with fish because of the name “Secret Sushi”. I did this sketch below on the right, and it became a good place to start finalizing the sketch into the computer.

I loved these fish (below on the left), but after talking to Adam, we came to the decision that these fish, while cute, were not professional enough. So I created the one below on the right.

Problem with both of the logos is that fish and Secret Sushi alludes to restaurant. I went back to the drawing board with the idea and thought about what I could incorporate into the logo idea. My mind wandered for a bit, and I took a quick glance at what I previously sketched. The sketch with the happy faces triggered a thought about emoticons.

Emoticons are punctuation used to express emotions. They work perfect for the social aspect of the branding. So, I added emoticons in place of fish.

This is the final logo below:

Gill Sans was used for the typography in order to tie to the original Secret Sushi branding. Gill Sans is Secret Sushi’s secondary typeface. The colors where also pulled from Secret Sushi’s primary and secondary colors.

Also here is the logo in use with the next event’s theme “Get Creative”:

Let me know what you think or if you have any questions about the process of making this logo and if you live in the San Francisco bay area you can check out our upcoming Secret Sushi Social happening on August 5th. Details can be found here: http://secretsushisocial.eventbrite.com/