A blog is a work in progress (at least that's how I'm seeing it). If you somehow discovered this blog on the very first days I posted, it looked quite a bit different than it does now. That's because I'm still figuring everything out (i.e. where to put columns and text, what pictures to include, how different fonts look together). These sort of things take time.
Today, I'm working on getting a logo in place so that this site doesn't look so much like a stock template. Here's where my logo was in the beginning:
Yeah, it's pretty bad. Nothing fancy. Aligned to the left. Gross for a blog title or capturing anyone's attention.
To begin (well, once you've determined a name for you blog/brand/etc, (which can take a while)), I like to sketch out my ideas. We're talking old school pencil and paper. It's so much easier to start on paper as it offers more freedom for you to jot down ideas. Incorporate things that you want to convey. Maybe your company is about coffee, so you want to include a coffee cup or a coffee bean or just a coffee ring leftover on a piece of paper. Whatever you think up, draw it! It doesn't have to be that great, just a sketch. Here are some of my sketches:
After I knew my blog/brand would be called "On Good Roads," I determined I wanted to include something about driving in the logo. I like road signs and did a basic web search for "road signs" to give me some ideas of where to start. I thought the car idea (above) was cute at first, but it was just too bulky for a logo. I had also brainstormed about turning the "A" in Roads into a vanishing point for a road disappearing into the horizon. But before I got to sketching that, I tried out a curved arrow as the "S" in Roads and really liked how that was looking.
{When creating a logo, I think it's best to start in black and white because, chances are, at some point you will need a basic black and white logo for printing (if you are serious about your brand anyway). Also, anything designed in black and white will look good in color. I promise.}
To add a touch of color and a nice "handmade" component to the logo, I decided to do a little spot of gauche (similar to watercolor) in the background. I pulled out my supplies...just used an old scrap piece of paper to paint on. It didn't need to be that big because I knew I could manipulate it on the computer later. The spot of color is yellow and in the shape of a road sign to further solidify my idea and make a cohesive logo.
In Part 2 I'll explain the computer end of my logo work.
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