A logo for Team Karma

The all-girl, Karma Team wanted a logo for their 2015 Ocean to Ocean cayuco.
The Ocean to Ocean starts in the port of Colon and ends at the Port of Balboa, Panama. The first leg is on Friday and runs from the old Cristobal Yatch Club to the entrance of the Gatun Locks on the Atlantic side. The second leg on Saturday runs across Gatun lake to the Dredging Division in Gamboa. The fastest boats do this leg in under 3 hours. Sunday has various legs between Gamboa to the Port of Balboa.
The original boats were shaped from a single tree truck. Today's 3rd generation cayucos are light weight plank boats.

Trans CAD trucking company

“We need a logo for our trucking company. Do what ever you want, but do us something good!”

I’ve done several trucking logos over the years. They are always fun. My brief was movement, modern and keep it simple. This logo had certain givens like… an italic font, a bold or black weight, and explore a slab or a sans serif typeface.

The color palette was going to be easy because the owners love pro football. Immediately I thought of an orange and blue or black combination; Broncos, Colts, Bengals, Cleveland… aggressive visuals. Wonderful ingredients.

Some logos are a type solution from the get-go. One of the things I learned in design school that has helped me all my life is… keep an idea file. Look and save for the future. 

I remembered a Brazilian logo that I saved because of the lowercase “a”. After a couple of hours searching the Net I downloaded 5 fonts similar to the Brazilian letter "a" and starting playing around. 

The last thing I worked on was the icon. Started sketching arrow tips and boomerangs with coloured pencils. Bing bang boom…. TransCAD is born.

Alegría Series of Buildings

The project brief required a logo that could be used on a series of 10 residencial buildings to be built over a 5 year period. 

The client also wanted to create a brand name that would unify the series. In the market names of European cities was common. The client wanted to go beyond that and create a name that had a reason why... something positive.

The winning concept was “Alegría”. Translated into English it is a blend of “happiness and joy”. "Alegría" was translated into 9 different languages. It was important that the translations be short words and easy to pronounce in Spanish with less than 3 syllables.

I set up 3 simple parameters to give the series structure and continuity: 1.) a sans serif font that wouldn't age with time, 2.) a simple icon that could be painted with different colours and 3.) a common color for the name.

The color palette was built from the colours of each country; Turkey, Italy, Spain, China, etc.

RPC TV

Back in 1992 RPC Tv asked to see ideas for a modern version of their icon. The previous year I had conceptualized and executed all the station IDs and program promos. Their symbol was a pre-colombian design of a crowned warrior. During the 3-4 month long project I baptised him as "Totumito".

I broke down the original indian symbol and rebuilt a new version with geometric shapes with bigger and simpler parts.

I think the inhouse designers at the station have done a great job with a new version of the logo. The font is dynamite as well as the red on grey.

Topsi Ice Cream

In 2008 the Topsi Ice Cream brand was given a face lift. These logo proposal combined new typography and characters. The following images show the final logo.

Topsi Ice Cream

Topsi is an established ice cream brand in Panama. This project only required a new packaging design. But simple projects are great opportunities to give the product, an ice-cream sandwich, a brand embassador. Wala... the pink polar bear.

Quencher (Jamaica)

The fun part of creating logos is when they tell you the project is about coming up with a brand character. Coming up with characters breaks all kinds of monotony and makes you a kid again.

Quencher was such a project for my good friend and mentor, Mike Hirst, in Jamaica. Mike asked, "Wat dat ting 'anly?" "Buay u kiant see it a  juice-loving devil-ting dat most quench 'im terist... mista 'irst", I replied in an email.

Terrasur Engineered Floors

Terrasur is a line of tropical hardwood floors made to European standards and exported to the USA and Europe. It was created in 2005 and the project included research, name proposal, logo and application design.

Super 99 (Panama)

In 2007 I presented a new business pitch to a large, supermarket chain. The project was done by the book with face to face interviews with customers to understand the pros and cons of the brand. The brand was solid in terms of locations and pricing, but begged for a face lift. I included three logo proposals for consideration.

Sadly for us the owner of the SM chain entered politics, won and is now the current President of Panama. We never got the chance to show him some great work. Next! Another day.

Reciclajes Integrales, S.A.

A business group saw the need for a company that could pickup used oil from ships, truck fleets, repair shops, oil change shops and gas stations, clean it and recycle it as a low-grade fuel. The color green was important as well as white and black.

Mega Depot

This logo was a face lift for an old brand. Mega Depot is a warehouse, bulk shopping store offering food, auto, home, garden, liquor and more. The new logo was tied in with an advertising campaign promoting "buy big".

Productos La Doña

Not all corporate identity projects are about starting from a clean pencil stroke. This 30 year old company just wanted to modernize their icon. The original "aproned chef" had a cooking spoon in her left hand a steaming pot on a stove to her right. A typical logo for the 70s!

After much debate the owner was true to his original trademark and accepted a full color illustration of the "cooking chef" and some new type. You can't win them all.

Hanly Design Group

In 1994 I started Hanly Design Group, a small design firm specializing in corporate identity, packaging, books, annual reports and corporate advertising. It was an exciting year because it was a time to learn web design.

I started HDG with a large local bank as my first client. A few months into this new stage of my life i sat down to create a logo that was symmetrical, with a 3x2 footprint, only one color, and simple. Wham Bam I was happy with my first sketches.

Centro Cuatro Altos (Colon, Panama)

Concept design for a shopping center to be promoted and built in the Colon province in 1998.

Autique (Ricardo Pérez, S.A.)

Autique was the Toyota Dealer's accessory boutique offering rims, spoilers and other pimping goodies before "pimping" became a multimillion dollar business.

Kitras & Kitras Seguros (Panamá)

Tower Securities, Inc. (Towerbank Panama)

Sistema Clave Panamá

Paul Smith

Subway Jeans