My Fair Logo

A long long time ago (January 2007) I said I was going to turn my photoshop transgressions (thanks Tiger) into a legitimate business venture. Well it's amazing how a 10 hour shift will stunt your dreams! My design company is however, progressing slowly toward reality. Here is the story of brave little logo and how he grew from an ugly duckling into a beautiful 300 calorie grilled chicken meal. Once my official website is set up I'll give you a full essay on how this logo came to be.

Logo Creator Software - Like Blonds in Sweden (Thanks Tiger)
Straight out of the College of Engineering, I had no idea where to start when formulating a logo design. From various design blogs I knew a few things like :
1. Logo should be scaleable
2. Logo should look good black on white or the opposite
I'm sure there were more rules, but I was young and impulsive... (Thanks Tiger). I fired up some Logo Creating software and spit out these beauties:





Wowsers! Surely one of these would have worked? Well turns out the problem with using "Logo Software" is that there will probably be a dude in Omaha or Boise or Calcutta that picked the same combination as you and now your "unique" logo idea is not duplicate. Plus, I couldn't explain to anyone what each swoosh or dot or twirllly line on these logo meant, which is kind of important for a graphic designer to be able to do...

"Urban" GFX Design Logo
Months and 10 hour shifts go by and I decide to get my foot in the design world door I should venture into the dark world of "Mixtape Cover GFX" GFX being the clever way mixtape cover designers abbreviate "Graphics" even though G-R-A-P-H-I-C-S is one word and can't be abbreviated. Either way I'd need a hot cool gangster logo. It was here that I decided to work the Camel angel extra hard and make it my company mascot. I also decided that Orange and Blue is more then world's best college fight song, but would make a great color scheme for my logo.


















I also dropped the LLC because incorporating is not in the budget this year (Thanks Tiger). Here I began with the basic black and white logo for general use and created a gradient outerflow filled triangle fest for use on the web. I still think it could work for some other businesses, but it's a little too casual, too gritty, too hot for TV to be used as a professional logo

No More Peter Pan, Choosy Moms... aka Professional Logo
A lot more months pass by. In this time I discovered the true power of photoshop brushes when combined with layer blends and masks (yes I know, this is all giberish to you). I also read an article about using subtle gradients to give your work depth. I also also read an article about using simple shapes to craft your logo. I also^3 think Tiger Woods Golf Video Game will still sell like hotcakes this christmas...

Going back to the creative well one more time, I created a logo that was equal parts typography, equal parts shapes.
Simple black and white version. Notice the highest circle is different then the rest. This represents the company's standing among the competition. (Yes I know, there's technically supposed to be 15 circles, and when I get my official website up, I will scan that scrap pad filled with crazy ways I tried to make that happen)

Orangeeeeeeee, Bluuuuuuuuuue, Orangeeeeee.... you get the idea. While this is light years ahead of that stuff the "Logo Software" it was still missing something. For letters, stationary, and envelopes, this is it for the logo. A Darker blue was used in future iterations, but you get the idea.

For web use I added this "blue-ish" background. Sadly Vista, Photoshop, my monitor, and my printer were all having issues getting colors to come out correct so I ended up with this weird metallic blue looking thing. Again this logo is usable, beats the pants off the earlier stuff, but it lacks depth. I have no mastered depth as you can see in the final logo.

Now I can honestly say that is a sexy, yet professional web logo. You won't see all these fractals and gradients on any court documents I serve you in the future, but for promotional material and web work, this logo is excellent. Notice the gradients in the words and circles that add a little visual depth to the piece. I also decided every future Fortune 500 firm needs a tag line and created one to sit under the logo.

Now on to the myspace facebook and twitter profile pages! Then a wordpress bases website!
Comments?

PS: I forgot how un-user friendly the pic tool is here on blogger. By unfriendly I mean like you just left your job as a naked butcher at the meat factory and you just fell in the lion exhibit at the zoo...