doctor who – creativebobbie

Torchwood. Outside the government. Beyond the police.

Consider this an extension to my #WhovianBobbie design series. Torchwood is one of the spin-off shows of the incredible television program I’ve grown to love, Doctor Who.

The Torchwood Institute was founded in 1879 to protect Britain from extraterrestrial threats and secure alien technology for Britain. The Torchwood TV show focuses on the small modern day team that is based in Cardiff, Wales.

In this project, I challenged myself to come up with a new logo for a new version of Torchwood. Since this would technically be a rebrand of sorts, I started with studying the previous logos. The first Torchwood logo was simply the letter T inside of a hexagon. The newer version of the institute’s logo, used in the show, is composed of hexagonal shapes arranged to make the letter T.

With this in mind, I decided to continue the tradition of using this particular shape. However, I wanted to see if I could come up with something different. My goal was to design something that was more of an evolution of the logo rather than a complete departure from tradition.

In my handy dandy sketchbook, I start looking at options for the hexagon and how to incorporate the letter T within it. If the initial logo for Torchwood was a single hexagon and the newer version was several arranged beside one another, how about I overlap hexagons? This created an interesting opportunity to create the letter T within the shape. I toyed with filling the letter as well as various sections but decided to make it an outline type logo. I wanted something that would be clean and recognizable. I pictured what would, in my opinion, look best on a clear office door. I didn’t think a big block T was necessary for me to get the point across.

In the final stage of the design process, I actually cut everything outside of the center. I tend to want to cut as much as possible when refining a concept. This decision also made the T on the inside more of the focal point. After arriving at the final logo, I applied a little color to it. The colors chosen took inspiration from the title sequences of the TV series.

Coming up with logos inspired by TV shows and other media is always fun. With each new project, I learn. Creative exploration is essential to keeping your mind sharp and curiosity satisfied.

~b.

Case Study: Doctor Who & The Rise of Whovian Bobbie

A friend of mine suggested I try out Doctor Who. Doctor Who is a British science-fiction show about the adventures of a Time Lord simply known as “The Doctor”. He explores the universe in his time-traveling ship, the TARDIS. It is a very interesting program to say the least. The two test episodes I was shown by my friend were “The Eleventh Hour” from Series 5 (seasons = series, across the pond) and “Blink” from Series 3. I thoroughly enjoyed both and instantly became interested in learning more about the Doctor Who universe. I considered being lazy and just continuing from Series 5. However, I decided to go back to Series 1 Doctor Who and experience the entire revival series from the beginning.

(Sorry to all super die-hard Whovians that think I should start at the very, very beginning. I don’t have time to go back to the 1963-1989 series and catch all the way up.)

While currently in Series 4, I had an idea to design some logo style graphics in tribute to this outstanding program of which I am a new fan. There may be – probably will be – spoilers so proceed with caution. (The show’s been out for 10 series starting in 2005 so…there’s that.)

Series 1 – 3

The initial idea was to just make a graphic for each series as I completed them. But you’ll see as you read further that it expanded a bit beyond that. With this part of the “Whovian Bobbie” design series, I wanted to capture some of the important elements of each series/season. A somewhat minimalistic representation of the series itself.

In the Series 1 graphic, I included original interpretations of the sonic screwdriver (one on each side), Daleks, and the TARDIS itself (on top). I was going for a crest of sorts then it took a life of its own.

In the Series 2 graphic, I highlighted one of my favorite interactions – Cybermen vs. Daleks at Canary Wharf. The two hearts below represent the two hearts of The Doctor. They are half filled to represent the event towards the end of Doomsday.

In the Series 3 graphic, you see my interpretation of one of the posters for the election of Harold Saxon, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. “Vote Saxon” was seen throughout the show in various places. The meaning behind it was revealed towards the end of Series 3. The circular objects in the Os as well as the middle of the poster refer to the Toclafane, seen in the two-part finale of Series 3. At the bottom, you see two dueling screwdrivers (which may or may not both be sonic)…for…reasons.

Characters / Races Thus Far

Since I had to create concepts of both for Series 1 and 2, I decided to make separate images for the Cybermen and the Daleks. Taking what I considered essential features of both, I crafted logos representing the legendary icons.

Here’s a video of how I designed the Cybermen logo.

Going forward, I am going to be designing my logo-ish tributes to various characters from the show and I will be designing graphics for each series as I finish watching them. Be following at instagram.com/creativebobbie. Excited to see where this project (as well as the show itself) takes me.

~b.