LogoLounge 2

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A new hybrid of logo or wordmark has

emerged in the past few years:

designs that are essentially URLs. The

mark for Luxi, a new online retailer for

high-end jewelry and watches, fits this

description. The New York City office

of Liska & Associates created its

wordmark and also named the new

service in 2003.

The new name needed to convey

that quality merchandise was avail-

able at discount prices—but the

look and sound of the name had to

be decidedly highbrow. The name

needed to be gender-neutral—strong

enough to appeal to men (who still make up the majority of the

online buying audience) yet friendly enough to welcome the

female shopper.

From a long list of names, Luxi was selected because it was short,

memorable, and easy to spell—crucial for a URL.

“The

I at the end also suggests a nickname,” explains Liska

designer Tanya Quick. “It’s like you are hearing an insider’s secret.”

When the name was selected, the design team began exploring

how to visualize it. One direction involved using images of con-

stellations, because watching the stars was an ancient way of

mapping time. Stars in the sky could also represent diamonds.

Another exploration used the universal symbol for a hand. This

concept worked well for what would eventually become two sis-

ter Luxi sites—one for jewelry and one for watches—because the

hand could be shown wearing either a ring for one URL and a

timepiece on the other, for example.

“This direction was more playful and

could be played out throughout the

site—as a directional, as a helping

hand, and so on,” Quick says. The

client liked this approach but wanted

something that was a bit stronger,

much bolder, and a bit less casual.

“Balancing friendliness and masculin-

ity was important,” she adds.

So the designers developed the idea of

a simple and direct wordmark. The final

design uses an elegant, elongated set

of letters with plenty of presence. But

balancing the letters, especially the

slight

I at the end of the word, was

tricky. Stretching the word turned it into more of a unified shape that

included the

I as part of its form.

The wordmark also worked well for Luxi’s primary applications—

displayed online and stamped on gift boxes. “Going with the sim-

ple mark allows for much more play in packaging and online,”

Quick says. Refining elements such as colors and thick-thin

weights in typography is more difficult in online display than it is

in print, she adds.

But the electronic environment also offers advantages. For

instance, for another Liska project, a line of teen skin-care prod-

ucts that would be sold only online, Liska designers discovered

that they were not bound by a strict requirement of in-store pack-

aging: a powerful shelf face.

“We could think about all sides of the bottle, not just its face. For

this particular design, we let the logo wrap all the way around the

bottle and circle it,” Quick explains. Logos can also be animated,

taken apart, and repurposed in new ways on websites.

“It definitely gives us the ability to have more play,” she adds.

Luxi

Identity Design

Liska & Associates, New York, New York

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Job no:82185(CTP) Title : RP-Logolounge 2 Client : Pro-vision

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175 Size : 228.6(w)279.4(h)mm Co : M6 C0 O/P: CTP

Dept : DTP D/O : 27.08.04 (Job no:000000 D/O : 00.00.01 Co: CM0)

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