OUGD402 - Studio Brief 2 - Self Branding Initial Logo Ideas

Initially I played around a lot with my initials, seeing if I could combine them somehow or use different shapes to create them like triangles or circles. I also thought of some playful ideas for names instead of using my own name, like something to do with things I love, e.g. biscuits, cats tea. I thought that I could use some nice imagery with these ideas instead of doing a type only logo. I also played a bit with negative space here, combining my initials it made a ribbon kind of shape which I found quite interesting. 

After doing some another negative space design I am quite interested by the shapes that are created with my initials. Maybe I should try with lowercase so that the shapes aren't so linear as I feel like I am not a linear sort of person. I really like the idea of including 'mini-mes' in my self branding to let people get a first impression of me. However I don't know whether this is too illustrative or whether I can get away with it as a graphic designer. 

Initially I tried to create my thumbnails of my two initials combined with existing fonts shown here, which are Bebas and Helvetica. However stretching the W to fit inside the H distorts it making it look patched together and unprofessional.

I moved onto another thumbnail sketch I made inspired by a logo in my monogram logos book and I think that it has worked really well. I drew the logo with the pen tool instead of using existing letterforms. Adding the flash of colour in the circle really makes it pop and I quite like the use of a bold yellow as it portrays friendliness and happiness. I added my name in Futura and I think it works well with the geometric shapes that I have created in my monogram logo.

I went back to my first idea and recreated it using the pen tool and I am very happy with the results. It creates an abstract shape in the counter of the two combined letters that reminds me of a ribbon or a bookmark. I used the colours CMYK inside, as they are the main colours of print which I am very interested in. 

I started playing around with the shapes and text placements. Once again I have used Futura which I think relates again to the geometric nature of my design. I also tried isolating the shapes inside the letterforms into a logo, I'm not sure whether this works on its own and I think that it works much better with the bold black lines as a contrast.