The Pharmacy Logo: From Concept to Completion

Recently, we were asked to create a logo for a new restaurant opening in East Nashville called The Pharmacy. The co-owner, Terry Raley (who also happens to be co-owner of Holland House Bar & Refuge), envisioned a turn-of-the-century pharmacy theme — when drug stores were more than just drug stores and you could get sodas, alcohol and burgers. Throw into the mix a Southwestern/German beer garden and voila! — you have The Pharmacy. Staff designer/illustrator Andy Gregg took a crack at it and below is his process from start to finish.

First, we started with late nineteenth century/early 20th century packaging. We produced a style board with multiple examples (like the ones above) to show to the client, and then got their feedback on which ones they preferred. The owners of the Pharmacy liked the colors from the Mucilage packaging and the angled typography of the Medford logo, among several other reference images.

 

Next, we produced several tight logo sketches. Each logo variant tried to include some aspect of what the clients liked in the style board.

 

The clients selected the sweeping, diagonal lettering used in a few of the versions. This was inked and scanned into the computer for tighter rendering.

After a little more development (actually a lot more) we arrived at a final black and white logo. Having already incorporated angled lettering into the design, we went with a seal motif for the tagline, as we really liked this in some of our reference images. This was also a bit more space-efficient (plus it allowed us to render a wicked-cool ampersand!)

Finally, taking color cues from the mucilage packaging above, we assembled a color version. All typography was hand-rendered, and the clients seem to be very happy with the overall result. 

The Pharmacy will be opening this fall, and in the interim we will be working on even more designs for them, including a style guide, mugs, shirts, secondary logos, and much much more. Stay tuned.