Bridging the Gap
A few years ago I had the opportunity to work with Ocean Leader Fisheries, located in Wedgeport, Nova Scotia to design a logo. The product was sea cucumber. Having never lived in China I was not familiar with this seafood.
CEO, Jules LeBlanc was very helpful providing details for my creative. He wrote:
“I want a potential buyer to know what it is that we buy/sell. The logo will give this person a good visual of what it is that we are marketing. If we go with the whole sea cucumber look (live) the focus should be on the flower and ridge of red dots, the two things that differentiate our species from others. If we decide on the curled skin, then focus would be on the tightness of the curl, black color and red dots which is the absolute best feature for a sale. It lets the potential (wholesale) buyer know that we understand the marketplace and what will make their sale easier, not just our own. If the sale dies with them, they’ll never buy this product again thus creating a negative effect on demand.”
Due to cultural differences the attraction and hook had to be the logo’s ‘visual’—it had to depict the product: the orange flowered sea cucumber either before or after processing. The decision was left in my hands.
A big challenge arose with the availability of photos to facilitate the design process. During my research I discovered that there are many species of these “sea worms”. Learning about this specific species on science-based sites provided details about their anatomy and functionality.
Armed with this information the few photos began to make sense. Shown below are two photos sent to me. Visiting Chinese websites really helped me to marry the details provided by Ocean Leader Fisheries with what would be appealing to their target market: colours (black and warm red) and shape (ying/yang symbol). I was able to incorporate the natural and processed state for their product. Logo icon shown below.
The logo was very well received. Although I appreciate the valuable ‘filtering work’ these creature perform, I’m quite certain that I’ll never be able to eat a sea cucumber.
