When it came to my personal brand's visual identity, I knew I wanted something versatile, sleek, and that would prove to be relatively timeless. I also wanted my personal brand to reflect who I am as a designer and an individual, so that everyone from clients, business partners, employers, and other designers could get some sense of who I am and what makes me different. I wanted it to be approachable, I didn't want to conform to many of the personal branding trends I came across, such as hyper sophistication, serif typefaces, and a feeling of "exclusivity" being in a line of business that is supposed to serve diverse people and needs. To complete this project, I played around with many possibilities, iterating on the logos I found interesting and even turned to my Instagram following for some feedback. In this project, I played the role of the client and the lead designer.
I started with a mind-mapping session. I put my assumed business name in the center and wrote down words that I associated with my values, interests, emotions, and style and corresponding associations to those words. Once I felt like I had written down all I could, I circled the words I felt most drawn to. This exercise helped me understand who I am as a designer and thus how I want to present myself to the world.
After exploring how other designers went about developing their brand, I couldn't resist playing around with some concepts that were bouncing around my head. I had to ground myself with some basic questions: where will this logo appear? In big places or small spaces, or both? Will it be worn on a t-shirt? How do I carefully communicate my values visually?
I knew I wanted something dynamic and made you look at it for a moment. I also fell in love with the idea of being able to develop a logo that could also serve as a pattern for business cards, website backgrounds, and clothing.
After playing around with the logo personally, I decided to lean on my Instagram following to get some feedback on a few concepts I would be willing to explore further. Within a few hours, it was obvious which concept people liked more.
