New Logo
Logo Design
I am not a good logo designer. Logo designers are a very special breed of designers who need to focus an incredible amount of time, research, and effort into what might end up as simple as a swoosh. Three of North America’s most easily recognizable logos are as minimal as possible:
ABC and Nike have taken everyday things (the first three letters of the alphabet, a swoosh) and managed to brand them. Gap, like Nickelodeon (orange), have actually managed to brand colour. None of this is an accident.
Design Process
My logo design process involved creating a number of goals:
- This is my personal website, so it has to be representative of that.
- It is for the web.
- It has to include green. In this case: #078C00.
- It should be minimal enough to fit in with my site design.
Goal one was the hardest, and will always require the most effort for any logo design. If I was working for a corporate client, it would have to be as representative of their company as mine should be for me. The first part of meeting this goal was a self-indulgent period of reflection.
Insulin
I’ve been a Type One diabetic since 1992 and have recently started using an insulin pump; this is on my mind a lot lately. I have always been fascinated with theoretical cell structures. I’m also a big science geek who once considered majoring in Biology.
I thought it would be a good idea to use insulin in the logo, but to what end? I made some sketches involving syringes, liquids, etc.; but nothing worked. Then I started Googling around and found a generated image of insulin hexamers on Wikipedia that I absolutely loved, so I brought it into Illustrator and started making shapes.
Illustrator
Adobe Illustrator is my program of choice for graphic design. I love the non-destructive editing process, and years of working in various mediums/sizes have given me a great appreciation for vector-based images.
I started by focusing on the outer triad (I think that’s carbon), but wasn’t feeling anything I came up with. Then I started looking at the inner structure (zinc, I think) and sketched a few ideas from there. From there, it was a matter of anal adjustments (at work, my reputation is “if you need something done, give it to Matthew; he’ll be finished in a half hour, but then he’ll spend the rest of the day adjusting everything pixel-by-pixel”) until it felt right.
The New Logo
Goals Revisited
- The insulin is obvious; but the green — and the fact that the logo looks like a flower — is a reflection of my environmentalism, the plants I take care of, and my favourite colour.
- It’s size and minimal colours make it very web-friendly.
- Green: #078C00; Red: #980738.
- I feel that the addition of red works very well.
Reflection
I’m happy with the logo for now. As I said, I’m not a good logo designer, so this was really a way to continue learning the logo design process. I intend to actively make changes to get more comfortable with identity branding.
Update
I had a chat with Dany about my logo, and he voiced similar concerns to the ones I had. I decided to rework a couple of my other ideas, and ended up sketching out something new.
Newer New Logo
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