Around 4 weeks ago I began to look into re-branding base6 design after deciding that I had fallen out of love with the current logo, typeface, colour scheme and pretty much everything on the website other than the work in the portfolio.

Truth is, I’ve stuck with the current base6 logo (above) for longer than I should have and the only reason I stuck with it for almost 2 years is because I have over 3000 business cards that use the current design (lesson learned).

I also had some old niggling memory from my college design class where the tutor proclaimed that you should “never change your logo or typeface!11!!1!!” – although this may be a good rule to follow it has been broken by a LOT of large companies and organisations with mainly positive results.

Killing the rocket

The base6 design rocket icon was the first thing I ‘made’ for the business. It even came before the actual name of the business had been officially decided. If you didn’t notice the resemblance I used the ‘Planet Express Ship‘ for inspiration:

My initial idea for the rocket was to build upon its image and add space-stations, moon bases, astronauts and robots to the ‘base6′ universe! As cool as this sounds (and it does) its a dumb idea and frankly I don’t have the artistic kudos to achieve the complex illustrations needed to do it properly so for this reason, its out.

The dumb revelation that helped get me reboot

While sketching out the words ‘base6‘ on a couple of post-its during some downtime something dawned on me – the lower-case letter ‘b’ and the number ’6′ look sort of similar – obvious yes? Well, no – I’d been using the ‘base6′ moniker for almost 2 years and never noticed this resemblance.

It was this simple revelation that inspired me to take action and after firing up Photoshop I’d converted my scribblings to something new that I instantly liked:

The process in the image above moves from bottom to top and you can clearly see the 6/b synergy in each of the mock ups and how the design evolved over time.

Eventually I decided on something like this:

The new logo is on top, the old at the bottom. The colours are not final but with a little more tweaking (when I get the time) I think I’m getting somewhere.

Of course, the logo is just the first step. I need to re-work the website and get some new printed materials for physical use. All of this will take a couple of weeks, maybe months to find the time to work on. But the base6 re-boot has started and nothing can stop it now.

Please let me know what you think in the comments or by dropping me a tweet or email.