The Logo: First Attempt

I've created a very initial design for the badge that is going to act as 'The Outsiders' tag and title. It's taken from drawings that I did in my sketchbook when I was first experimenting with ideas.

These are very initial, early designs of the switchblade. I definitely need to develop them further but they act as examples of what's going to there. These are just based off of pictures I saw of switchblades online.

My strongest idea for the logo is having blood smear across as the switchblade is being "switched" (opened). So, I started by just drawing a shape where the blood is going to be.

After this I decided I wanted to simplify the design a bit, considering the research I've done on retro graphic design. I turned the knife into a silhouette, and then thought about how I could strengthen the viewers understanding of it without making the design too complex. I added a blood "shape" on the knife. I coloured it grey, because I wasn't sure about using the same red, but I still need to develop and experiment further with the colours on this logo. This is just very early experimentations. 

Once I had got to this point, I wanted to develop the blood 'smear' further, as it wasn't looking like one...I used the same tool that I used to create the ripped paper effect - the 'wrinkle' tool. 

To get an idea of how I could position the text inside the logo, I added some in a specific font. I like this font as it mimics the "smeared" look, but I have not made any concrete decisions on which one I am going to use - nor the colours. 

I want to look closer at retro badges/logos again, as I do not feel that this has a strong enough retro feel. This is just one of the possible ways I could design the title of the book, too, and I will experiment further with it.