Monday, March 1, 2010

Personal Branding - #2

Here are some things I've been working on. Feedback would be much appreciated.

The variations between these two are slight. Rather than being solid shapes, they're more dimensional in the second one. What I like about this look, is that I can use the shapes within the rest of the collateral to help create a cohesive look. For example, on the letterhead, I could have a row of little T T T T running across the top. (I don't necesarily want people to read the shapes. It doesn't really spell anything - ucatucd?, which is why I brought them down in value. I just want people to see the shapes. But I wonder if you all tried to read it? I got the shapes by removing the bottom half of the word HEATHER.)

I also wonder if all lowercase is better than title care? When I broke the logos down into their small look, the U with lowercase hv looked very bad. And it would probably be funny to mix the two, yes? And I'm still working out the color schemes. It's probably going to be some version of gray, or yellow or red.

Another sort of twist on the same idea:
This design actually mixes this new dimensional shape with an idea I had earlier, which was to make HV look like a pencil/exacto knife. When I pursued this before, it came out veeeery clip art. See below.


Below are two other previous branding attempts. The first I liked because it feels a bit more personable and less sterile. But it's a very tall logo which I was having issues with. The second one I liked at first, but then someone mentioned "jester" and I couldn't get that out of my head.
I'd really appreciate any feedback, critiques and suggestions. I think doing your own branding is the hardest thing.

4 comments:

Rob Roan said...

I love the first set of where the bottom half of HEATHER is chopped off with the solid gray and solid yellow. I got it right away. I think the shapes are strong and gives a nice contrast to the thin lowercase typeface you have below it (gotham light?) I think you should definitely go for Option 1.

Option 2 was cool and had a plaid look to it but seemed too light to me. It felt like it could blow away if you sneezed in front of it.

As for the rest I'm not a big fan of first & last name initial logos. I think if your name is original enough, then don't initial your logo.

h. van de mark said...

Rob, you're awesome. Thanks for the feedback and stating some of your reasoning. You made some really good points (like why I shouldn't break it down into initials).

the type is actually Drescher Grotesk, which I have been swooning over recently. quite close to gotham (which i also love.)

L_MILLER said...

I really like where this is headed...you've come a long way! How do you like it?

h. van de mark said...

Thanks Lexi. I'm really into the top idea, and I think that's the one I'm going to go with. But I'm lucky, in that I have some other ideas/revisions in my head that I need to play around with. But hopefully I'll nail something down in the next few weeks.