Moscow Express, a new and upcoming band from Rotterdam asked me if I could design them a logo. The description was “Wild western, steampunky inspired”…lol wut? Â (j/k) Â They had some examples of existing logo’s that they liked. Giving examples of what you like (or don’t like) always helps a lot with the design process.
This sounded interesting and like something completely up my alley.
I made a few first sketches…
..of borders, which came out too jugendstillish.. I made a few more attempts like this, nothing came out of it.. I guess I got some nice jugendstill borders left over for some future project 
For more inspiration I started research on fonts and typefaces with the right wild-west vibe. I took a few days of search on more and more obscure looking sites before I found what I wanted..YAY, victory #1
After that, I got the idea to research saloon style signs and make a steampunkish logo inspired on those. For the steampunk reference I used a cogwheel, made rusty using one of my own premade textures.
Note the different types of corners, I did this to get a feeling of which would look best.
This was the first sketch I presented to Moscow Express, their inital reaction was very positive, but, altho the cogwheels are very iconic, they were also too distracting.
After that comment I started trying out loads of different things and combinations.
Too be honest, it was driving me nuts…so, I went on vacation 
one week (and a few days) later, I was refreshed, re-inspired and back on the drawing board. What were the elements that I liked? The typography, the textures and a cogwheel reference..what could be scrapped? It was pretty obvious, but I still didn’t see it, untill…
…I saw an advertisement for de Ruijter on t.v.. It hit me, the problem wasn’t with the cogwheels…it was the border! Â And after some experimenting with the border, without the border..blabla..etc.. I decided to make the border more like an old wild-west Wanted sign, and incorporate a cogwheel (or 4) inside the background texture.
And so, the Moscow Express logo was born…
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