Tenth Letter of the Alphabet: Anatomy of a Logo: X-Force

Monday, August 15, 2016

Anatomy of a Logo: X-Force

I met with Marvel editor, Bob Harras, at 12:30, October 22, 1990, to discuss the X-Force logo. I don’t remember the details of the meeting. Usually there’s a general description of the title and characters. Sometimes the editor has an idea or suggestion for the logo. I believe Bob told me to do whatever I wanted. As it turned out, this assignment had a long deadline.

Back at my studio after the meeting, I did some thumbnail designs. On the sheet below, you can see a few of my sketches for the Hellraiser/Nightbreed Jihad title.

On November 18, 1990, I developed and refined two logo designs.

My appointment book said Bob called me on November 26. I don’t recall details of the conversation but the logo was put on hold. About four-and-a-half month’s later, Bob called on April 5, 1991 and gave me the green light to do more logo designs. Below are my thumbnail sketches.

Two days later I produced tight renderings of the designs.

On April 9, I faxed four designs, some with variations, to Bob, who chose design 4-C.

On Sunday, April 14, I started work on the final art.

The final art was ink on LetraMax paper. Corrections were made by scratching off the ink and peeling away a layer of paper. I delivered the art on April 15. This version appeared in the first issue.

On June 18, 1991, Bob called and said he wanted a bolder version of the logo. On the 23rd I created a bold version which required adjusting the spacing between all the letters.

On Monday, the next day, I faxed the design with alternate versions of the counters for the O and R. Bob approved the logo with the alternates. On the revision I adjusted the letterspacing again.

On June 25, I made a tight rendering of the logo. A few minor changes were indicated in red. Then I proceeded to make the final art, which was delivered the next day.