Back in 2018 I (Joshua) sat down in a coffee shop with the future owner of Grizzly Mats, a facility floor mat rental company based in Ellicott City, Maryland. I have to be honest, it’s the rare small business entrepreneur I meet with who has it figured out before day one (heck, I sure didn’t). Grizzly Mats did. They knew their market, team, dates, advertising methods, budget, margins, and more. On paper they were ready.
But Grizzly Mats needed a logo and branding. We worked extensively with their owner over the following month to create branding and design a logo that would fit their tough mats and dependable character.
Brand Atmosphere
Whether designing a new website or designing a logo, we always begin with brand atmosphere design including colors, typography, layout, and other design notes. This brand atmosphere sets the stage for everything else we’ll work on together to ensure consistency across the brand.
We designed a complete brand atmosphere for Grizzly Mats with natural and cool colors to convey their tough but dependable brand.
Logo Design
Once we had the basic brand style in place we were ready to begin work on their logo. Grizzly Mats wanted a text centric logo with a bear or bear paw. This logo had to work well on shirts, the Web, and (eventually) on the mats themselves).
Early Sketches
We loved the bear paw and begin sketching up some options:
Final Product
But our first shot doesn’t always hit home. The owner of Grizzly Mats wanted to take the logo in a different direction – a bear silhouette.
The most important thing when designing our logos is to clearly communicate the personality of our client’s companies to their target market. We loved doign just that for Grizzly Mats.
