Stallion Events is back at it with a handful of awesome events coming to The Wildwoods and the surrounding areas this summer!
I was asked, with very short notice due to life getting in the way, to create a new logo for an event that’s being rebranded. What was once the Crest Mobile Truck & Movie Night is now Food Trucks at Centennial Park complete with a new location. However, that also meant it needed a new look.
For those unfamiliar, Centennial Park is an area in Wildwood Crest where different events are held like outdoor concerts and festivals. When there’s nothing going on, it’s nice to go sit under the canopy and enjoy the sights.
Iconically, though not as iconic as the beach balls at the Wildwoods sign, Centennial Park has large letters around the back end of the canopy that spell out C R E S T, in case you forgot which part of the five-mile long island you’re on. I wanted to capture this in the logo, but without “Crest” actually being in the name, I had some brainstorming to do.
Because I had very little time (I’m talking like three days—which is why I’m also calling this a design quickie), I jumped right into color instead of working in my standard black and white. Basically, I had to have finished products with zero steps in between.
With the very tight deadline, rather than three ideas, I cranked out five-ish, and presented the three I thought were the nicest: the first one with the canopy, the retro-ish one with the stylish script, and the one with the plate behind it. In the original ask, the client told me that because she knows how tight this is, a text logo would be fine. But it’s one of those situations where if that’s what it’s going to be, why would you even pay someone to do it? This isn’t a jab at logotypes—those things are designed over weeks, months, and sometimes years. This is for a local event that may change again in six months’ time or even right after the event ends. See where I’m going with this?
Anyway, I thought the logo deserved some preferential treatment, so I added some imagery in. The most fun version was the canopy one because locals will identify it immediately without reading all of the copy and visitors who aren’t familiar will make the connection with the venue.
Now before you question why one truck has a dark window and the other a white window—it’s because I wanted to see which looked better, and quite honestly, I don’t know. I’m thinking the dark window might take this award.
I’ve taken a break from social media, so I’m not sure if the final selection has been posted yet, but I know it was needed to start the social media pages (IG and FB, usually) and an ad was needed to run in the papers—that’s what the deadline really was.
I will say, the logo doesn’t really work in small applications like the paper/social media ad to the left. That’s going to take some more brain storming as to how to make that work. But for the ad, the idea was to keep the color theme similar to the Crest Mobile Truck & Movie Night ad. Looking at this, I see some things that could have been different, but by now, it’s too late.
Anyway, a few tweaks to the canopy version brings us to the final look:
Not bad for a few hours work, if I do say so myself.
The dates you see on the above ad are solid: July 10th and 24th, August 7th, 5-9PM at Centennial Park, E Fern Rd & Ocean Avenue, WIldwood Crest, NJ. Stallion always has awesome trucks and vendors at their events, so if you happen to be down that way during those dates, go check it out!