Studio Brief 01, Logotype - Influences towards American Apparel design philosophy

I recently read an article titled '13 things you don't know about American Apparel' and scrolling down the list I managed to find one of the reasons behind American Apparels unique aesthetic.

The 1976 Montreal Summer Olympics. Dov Charney, ex-CEO, was born in Montreal and was 7 when the Olympics was happening. As a result it has become a 'recurring motif in the company's history'.

You can definitely see some of the design elements incorporated into American Apparels clothing through the posters bold, vibrant colours and the modernist design in relation to the company's current logo.

Therefore the key design elements that distinguishes the 1976 Summer Olympics would be the thick rounded lines used in the Olympic logo and posters along with its vibrant colours. 

The first typeface that came into mind was the typeface used on Its Nice That's blog. I did some research and found that it was GT Walsheim by Grili Type, a Swiss foundry. 

So these are my initial experimentation's with the typeface. What was effective was the roundness of the letter forms along with its thick bold strokes that relates the Olympic logo. I found that tracking and kerning the typeface led to a more effective design element as it keeps the rather long American Apparel name compact and easy to read. The contrasting weight of American and Apparel act as a 'visual space bar' and puts emphasis on the two values that American Apparel strive to uphold. I can take this experimentation further by dragging the outline upwards like the Olympic logo or altering the typeface to create a bespoke iteration.

This are my initial experimentation's with colour on the American Apparel logo. The colour that stands out to me is the green almost teal hue in between the yellow and light blue. Its a colour that is quite unique to American Apparel and is used on their clothing as shown above. Red is also a common colour used throughout their clothing range. The last two experiments are trying out the idea to imply that by wearing American Apparel, you are American. Hence the colour change on 'Am' and 'erican'. All these iterations hold potential and I need to further my experimentation's with what works and what doesn't. My next step is to try out different colour combinations, the use of outline and further research into 1977 Olympics to see if there are any more design cues I can pick up on.