Logo Design for Novellum Magazine – A Case Study

• September 12, 2024
• Nick Saporito
• no comments

Sometimes nailing the logo is all about finding the right typography for it. This makes your font collection an invaluable asset as a designer— especially if you have an eye for matching type with messaging.

Now that I’m back in the full swing of taking on clients again, I figured it would be good to get some fresh case studies published. This one, in particular, I’m excited to share because it emphasizes how typography can do much of the heavy lifting when it comes to logo design.

Novellum Magazine

Recently I was commissioned to design a logo for Novellum Magazine — a soon-to-be-released digital publication that fuses classic literature with pop culture.

The goal was to establish a brand identity that represents these two ideas and subtly merges them. Since this logo will mostly be used a masthead for a magazine, the challenge was to express much of this through a typeface.

Typography

My approach was to use a typeface that represents classic literature and pair it with a color scheme that alludes to pop culture. This would allow me to create a balanced and uniform fusion of these two concepts in such a way that they don’t clash. The client agreed.

For the typeface, I went with a serif-style font. Serif lettering is often associated with tradition, history, and formality, which aligns with the aesthetic of classic literature. Its use in printed books (especially in older literary works) makes it feel timeless and elegant.

We tried out a dozen or so fonts, but the one we landed on was “Sisteron”— a display font with a “Jugendstil” style by designer Simon Walker:

Of all the fonts we sampled, this one was my personal favorite as well and I was delighted that the client felt the same. The prominent strokes and exaggerated serifs give the name a distinct look that evokes vintage influences.

To distinguish the design further, I added a quill to the negative space between the letters U and M:

This personalizes the design while communicating a reference to classic literature.

The Iconic Mark

With the typeface settled, the next challenge was to create an iconic brand mark that could work as a standalone logo.

For this, I simply took the letter N and added the quill to the negative space of the upper-right area:

This gives the client both a wordmark to use as the magazine’s masthead and a brand mark in the same style that could be used in various contexts, including as a profile picture for social media.

Color Palette

The final task was to establish a color palette that conveys the idea of pop culture. For this, the obvious choice was to use something bold and vibrant to represent the energetic nature of contemporary entertainment.

We tried various shades, but ultimately went with a combination of lime green paired with a deep electric blue:

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In Conclusion

This logo emphasizes the importance of sourcing and investing in good typography and knowing how to align it with a brand’s messaging. It also abides by all of the principles I teach in my Logo Design Academy, some of which include:

• It’s conceptual and not literal
• It’s versatile and can be used in any context
• It uses complementary colors from the color wheel
• Most importantly, it visually represents the messaging in a unique and concise way

Some use case mockups:

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