IF IT’S NOT BROGAN, DON’T FIX IT!

It always seems to pan out that the logo’s that take the longest are the ones that end up the simplest. I knew going into this project that the end solution was going to have to be understated yet still unique. The clients own design work was well thought out, with attention to detail, unique, and subdued in all the right places, and that’s what the logo needed to be.

As much as I love the projects that allow me to get a bit unorthodox with typography, color, concept, and all that; there is something about the simple projects. Projects like this logo are a different beast all together and sometimes require I sharper eye for detail. The tedious, and sometimes frustrating part of this logo was the type choice. The more I got into the project with my concepting and sketching, the more I realized how much this logo would hinge on the font. My final choice ended up being Jenson, a font that I found had just the right proportions for the “H” and the “C”. After playing around with the letter forms a bit, I kept coming back to original forms themselves. This use to be a very frustrating thing for me, I felt that as a designer, I needed to man-handle everything that went into the logo. It was my desire to take credit for 100% of the aesthetic that many time kept me from letting go of many awful, overly complicated designs. It wasn’t until later on that I realized the value of simply letting the beauty of another’s shine through and make the logo wonderful. In this case, this would be the value of the font itself. I am finally learning to appreciate the equity that these letter forms create and allow those to be the showcase of the logo.

So a friend of mine calls me up. “Ryan, I need a favor, can you do me a logo for a project?”

Usually I stop right there. As a designer, I have many times wrestled with doing work for family and friends. Many people will tell you, it’s hard to do business with someone whom you’ve never had a business relationship with. Regardless, I took the project on. I believe that it really depends on the person, and my friend understood my initial inhibitions to take on the project, so I knew we were on the same page. I think it’s easy, especially as a designer, to drown yourself in your own ideals. This is something that I have become increasingly aware of lately. I firmly believe in standing strong on your convictions; design ethics is important, but I also believe that too many times we let our ego’s get too entangled in our ideals or ethics.

I had very little information to design on. “What are you guy’s looking for?” I asked. “The name of the company is Little Big Slaw, its a production company more or less, just do something that you would be proud of yourself.” The end result was a logo that turned out very different from my other current projects. It was refreshing to do something illustrative and open. Sometimes small projects can be a great way to take your mind off of larger ones that may have you stuck or frustrated. While this project was not exactly a cash cow, it was certainly a great diversion, and a fun creative exercise if nothing else.