Isabella Acuña’s Portfolio
YUCK! is a personal side project I completed to translate one of my favorite songs (“Yuck” by Charli XCX) into a visual logo format. I sought out to capture the retro aesthetic of the song, along with the “Yuck!” tagline.
Contents
1. The Inspiration
2. The Preliminary Thumbnails
3. The Second Logo Drafts
4. The Third Logo Iterations
5. The Final Logos
6. Animating the Logo
7. The Animations and Mockups
8. The Vinyl
The Inspiration
Inspired by singer Charli XCX, I wanted to combine the chorus and sound landscape of her 2022 song “Yuck” with the visual aesthetic of her 2024 album “BRAT.” I utilized a solid green backdrop similar to the “BRAT” album cover, with a similar low-resolution style.
The Preliminary Thumbnails
I began by sketching out rows of logo concepts - one column incorporated sharper edges, while the second colum utilized softer, more rounded edges.I was inspired by combining the funkiness of early 2000s graphic design with the cleaner, more modern look of today.
The Second Logo Drafts
With the next iteration of logos, I expanded upon my first logo spread with some alterations, most notably a consistent color palette. The green took inspiration from Charli XCX’s most recent aesthetic, as well as its association with disgust (hence the tagline “Yuck!”).The Third Logo Iterations
For the third iteration of logos, I took a more silhouette-inspired approach. Borrowing from the shape of some of the first and second iterations of logos, I devised a more cohesive logo with an easily interchangeable color palette to allow for a more varied brand identity.I also experimented with adding simple shape backgrounds for this logo iteration, which I would continue in my next and final iteration.
The Final Logos
Building off of the color palette and incorporation of shape backgrounds from the previous logo iterations, I decided to take a more 2.5D approach to my next logo concepts.To reflect Charli XCX’s twinkling, punchy pop sound, I made use of star motifs to pair with the bright color palette. The final logo result was a bold, punchy visual that matched the early 2000s sound and musical aesthetic of “Yuck”.
Animating the Logo
Keeping the early 2000s aesthetic going, I wanted to take the logo a step further and design a simple animation. I utilized the final logo iteration to frame the logo as a looping error message within a minimalistic, retro computer UI.Using Adobe AfterEffects, I created additional computer UI elements in Adobe Illustrator, like a mouse cursor and a file folder that the “Yuck!” error would pop out of, and then animated each element into a short loop.
The Animations and Mockups
The final animations are reminiscent of early 2000s cartoons, retro PC interfaces, and modern music.
I sought to format the looping animations like an unofficial teaser for an upcoming song release, including Easter eggs like an abbreviation of the song’s chorus within the changing file name of the folder icon.
I was inspired by the way modern musicians utilize short-form content and music videos to promote upcoming songs through subtle “clues” sprinkled throughout the video for fans to guess the meaning.
The result is two short-and-sweet animated loops that would fit well into the context of modern social media platforms such as Instagram Reels, TikTok, and YouTube Shorts.