I have never considered myself to be artistic when it comes to designs and images, so when I realized that I would need to create an image from scratch in illustrator as part of a logo I started to sweat it a little. When I envisioned the logo for Green Frog Juice Bar and Superfoods I thought of a big green frog drinking a delicious juice. The problem was that I had no idea how to draw a frog on paper or on illustrator.
My first step was to google pictures of frogs and frog logos just to get an idea of what my frog should look like. I then searched for different ways to draw frogs in illustrator. I found three of four different tutorials but the one I liked the best showed how to draw a happy frog.
You can watch it here:
http://www.fanpop.com/clubs/adobe/videos/8197614/title/happy-frog-adobe-illustrator-tutorial
I took some of the basic steps from this tutorial to start my frog. As you can tell he still needs a little bit of work. I then rotated him to give the appearance of tilting his head back. I then used the ellipse tool and the line segment tool to create a juice. I put the juice next to the frog and placed the straw by his mouth.
For the text on the logo I wanted the words GREEN FROG to stand out and I wanted them to be all caps. I also wanted to use a fun font to give off the feeling or happy or care free. I then used a smaller font size for the rest of the text.
For the final I want to fine tune my frog image so that he looks more recognizable as a frog and really demonstrate that he is enjoying his juice.
I see this logo being used on a sign or on a poster in a window mainly but could also be scaled down and used for smaller projects as well.
Green Frog Juice Bar and Superfoods 
Ryan, thank you very much for your logo. I like the simplicity of your logo but knowing how much truly hard work you put in to create it. It shows incredible creativity and thought. The frog is immediately recognizable. I also like your adding the text below to help ensure the reader knows that they are looking at a logo for a creative company. I would suggest that the placement of the black seems to be a bit off in the eyes. While I do get that no two eyes are the same, the location of the black in each eye appears to make the left eye look lazy a bit. I would also suggest that the edges of the cup be cleaned up a bit. While I did have to zoom in a bit to seem they were not one straight line, I think that if you were to blow this image up (a logo is to work for a business card as well as a billboard), those subtle differences might begin to show. You are off to an incredible start and I wish you well for this and other projects we complete this semester.
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Hey Ryan
Great draft! I’m glad you took the time to find a tutorial to draw out a frog, I wouldn’t have known to draw one either! Plus, I think the frog outline came out great! I like the font you used for the name. It works well with the overall logo. The lighter green separates the font from the darker green in the frog, which I think was smart.
I would first suggest adding more depth to your frog. The straight green color makes him look flat. You could play with gradients and maybe look up tutorials on ways to do this. I also think the drink could use some work as well. I understand the color chosen, but the outline of the cup makes it looks like it’s dirty. I know that’s a weird critique, but when I first looked at the image, the scratchy black outline made it look dirty inside the cup. The straw looks like it sits outside of the frog’s mouth instead of the frog actually drinking it. Maybe you could have the tip of the straw thinner to look as if he is drinking it? I’m not sure how that will turn out, but you should definitely play with it.
Thanks.
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Hi Ryan,
While you said you do not consider yourself artistic when it comes to logo design, I think this is a very creative one! I think your logo makes great use of visual unity, bringing all of the constituent elements together in a creative manner that will catch the consumer’s attention. I also think your logo displays good proximity, with no one element sitting too far off and creating any visual distractions.
One area I would consider tweaking on your design is to utilize thicker lines for the frog face elements (mouth, nose, eyes, etc) in order to give it more visual pop. Another minor suggestion I have is to add stroke detail to the straw, so that is has greater definition against the frog face. These are minor tweaks to what I consider a strong design – I look forward to seeing the final product later this week!
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Ryan
Hi Ryan – I enjoyed reading your post and looking at your Happy Frog! First, I think your design was outstanding and really caught my eye. It looks like it was professionally made. I especially like the font you choose for the design. The text you added underneath the GREEN FROG text lets the reader know it is an advertisement for a juice bar. As for comments and suggestions, I would try a circle or oval to encase it to really draw attention to the design to see how that looks. Also, maybe can adjust the straw placement so it looks like it is in his mouth?
I tried to use the line tool and it was hard for me to get the right placement too….. Sometimes I just play with the Illustrator tools and see how things look. I like that you found some frog projects to use in your design. I did the same thing in trying to make a coffee cup. Finally, maybe can try moving the text around to see if it looks better in different places (such as centering the juice bar and superfoods). Those are all the suggestions I had as I believe your design is very strong!
Lisa
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Thank you everyone for all of the feedback. It is much needed and greatly appreciated!
The main take aways are that I need to work with adding some effects to the frog to make him seem like he is not so flat. I also need to work with the frogs eyes to make sure that they are the same.
The second thing that I want to work on is cup of juice. Now that I have read the feedback I can tell that cup looks dirty and gross when it should look crisp, clean, and refreshing. I will work on that as well.
I had also not thought about using a background shape to bring everything together. I think that the suggestion for a circle or oval is really good and I will try to incorporate that as well.
It seems like the font choice and colors received good feedback so I will probably leave them as they are.
Thanks again!
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