After doing a little more studying about the company, I enhanced my 4 best ideas. I had revised a little last week, not really feeling to passionate about any of the ones I made, and found Lionsgate actually does have a lion mascot, though it is not a part of their logo, but is still associated with the company. I attempted to use my own take on it as a part of the illustrative element of the logo, still keeping their font relatively the same. I'm leaning towards #2 the most, #4 coming in second and #1 in 3rd. #3 was one of the favourites picked out by my group last week, though I'm not really much of a fan of it as I don't really feel it says "Lionsgate" to me.
Research for Lionsgate Films Re-branding
General Company Info: Client Questionnaire
What is the name of your company?
How old is your company? We are a division of Lions Gate entertainment, founded in 1998 in Vancouver, BC, Canada
What is the size of your company? We are a smaller division of a larger division of Film companies under Lions Gate Entertainment
Are there specific dates the project needs to be complete? We need the logo within the time frame of 3 months
Your budget dictates how much time can be spent on your project. What is your budget? We have a high budget and can afford to pay a lot for a good logo.
Describe your business in one sentence: A company that is passionate about independent and foreign films
.Describe your business in two words: Home Entertainment
Describe your business in one word: Independent
What doesn't your business do, or do well? Our logo doesn't appeal to our general audience.
What differentiates your business from competitors? We are an originally Canadian company and we support independent and foreign films, as well as big block buster films and TV.
How did you start the company? We started our company in 1962 in Montreal, but moved to Vancouver and renamed our company Lions Gate in 1998, keeping our main goal in mind
Is there a story that is unique to your company? Or perhaps a unique story to the company name? We are named after the Lions Gate bridge in Vancouver, BC
What are your business objectives? What do you want the design/redesign to do for your company? We want to bring new life into our company’s image, hopefully attract more film-makers to go through us to help them make their films great
General Image of Company
If your company/brand was a person, who would it be? why? Our company would be the independent film-maker who is driven to make a film no one has ever seen before; something unique, artistic and new.Is there an important object, building or person for your business? The Lionsgate bridge and the Leo constellation.
How do you want the public to perceive your image? We want the public to enthuse about our movies and get excited when they see our logo at the beginning of a movie or a preview.
What do you want to be famous for? We want to be famous for making great films and supporting our local and foreign film-makers
What words should the general public associate your business with? Name at least 3 Independent, awesome, movies
What aspect of your image needs improvement? How do you want your image to be seen in 2 years? 10 years? Our logo is quite bland and doesn't incorporate everything we want identified with us. It is merely just text and we want to bring life into the overall image of our brand, something totally new and inspiring, just like the movies we create. We want people in 2 years to see our brand and feel excited for the movies we make, and in 10 years we want people to recognize us instantly and know what to expect from our movies.
Competitors
Who are your competitors?
How are they better/worse than your product/service? Some are far more successful and have a stronger brand identities. You see their brand logo, you instantly know what to expect.
Who might you compete with in the future? We might compete with newly emerging film companies such as Bad Robot, Twisted Pictures, and other smaller independent businesses
The Target Audience
Who is your customer? Describe in detail. What do they do? What do they watch? Our customer is the movie fanatic. They are an independent individual who enjoys movies of all varieties, from the blockbuster to the independent film. They want to indulge in the beauty of cinema and have a great timeWho is the ideal customer? The ideal customer is the person who is just as passionate about movies as we are, perhaps someone who is in the movie business themselves, or just a regular, ordinary person.
How old is your ideal customer? Our ideal customers is in the 20-40 age range
What customers do you want to attract that you aren't getting yet? We want to attract more people of all varieties to let our movies be seen
How do they find out about you? They find out about us by going to the cinema to see our movies, through friends and when they sit down and see our logo in a movie preview on the TV
What do they want from you? They want great home entertainment.
What customers do you not want to attract? People who hate films
What do you offer your customers that your competition does not? Foreign films, independent films, and a diverse array of awesome films and television.
Current Identity
What do you like about it and what do you not like about it? We like how it appears epic and divine, but we feel it is too simple and doesn’t include everything. We want to be able to incorporate the leo Lion our logo somehow and tie it all together. The elements just do not seem to be linked well.What are two identities or logos that you like? Dislike?
Like:
We like these logos because they are so recognizable, that you can tell exactly what they are without the text beside them. They are multi-functional and highly successful. You see the Warner Brothers logo, even without the WB on the inside, and you can still tell, just by the shape, that it's Warner Brothers. With Paramount, it is the same deal. The ever recognizable stars and the font are extremely successful and just by the shape of the mountain on it's own, it is obvious that it's a paramount film the moment you see the shape.
Dislike:
We dislike these because they appear too dated. Even though the Metro Goldwyn Mayer logo is extremely nostalgic and highly recognizable, the style is too old-fashioned for a new company like Lionsgate.
Dimension Films is more modern. Even though we like the 3D look, considering the new trend in 3D films, it looks too late 80s early 90s 3D and lacks the nostalgia of MGM. It is far too typographic and simple, and we want to steer away from that. Even though the idea of the 3D type correlates to the name of the brand "Dimension", it is not entirely apparent.
What colours do you like? Dislike? We like black, white, grey, yellow, blue and red. Our current colour scheme is dark blue, yellow, white and black. We don’t want anything too fun or bright, since it has to represent our diverse business.
Redesign only: Do you have a tagline? Colour scheme? Imagery? If you have an of these, what are we changing? Why? And why are we not changing the others?Our colour scheme is very basic. Black, white, yellow and blue, and we would like to keep it the colours as-is. Our imagery is our typographic logo over a cloud background, and we would like to change the imagery to something more recognizable and versatile. Something that we can use the image logo on its own, or the type on its own and our customers will instantly recognize it. We want to keep the font the same, if it is possible because our customers have come to recognize our logo, so we are really keen on keeping the font somewhat the same, same with our colour scheme.
Do you have an identity? Typographic 3D logo over a plain cloud-like background.
What do you like about it and what do you not like about it? We like how it appears epic and divine, but we feel it is too simple and doesn’t quite represent us as a whole.
B&W thumbnails:
(excuse the poor quality, I don't have a scanner, so I had to use my tablet's camera). I'm leaning towards #15-17, and I am liking #1 and #20.
