A few months back I was able to re-connect with a college friend, Jessica Higgins on Facebook. I saw that she was starting to take her photography more serious and was looking to branch out. She already had a blogspot site, but I assumed that she might want something more professional. I shot her a message and we began discussing the idea of building a website for her.
Before I began designing, it was determined that she needed a logo. On her previous blogspot site her primary colors were pink and black. I wanted to stick with that, but soften it up a bit. I opted to tone it down, and work with a gray and magenta color scheme. Jess’ photography has a feminine feel, so I knew I would have to branch out from my regular design style.
The “S” in the logo came fairly quickly. After a few little sketches, I was off and running. I showed the photographer a few different options, and after one round of edits, the logo was approved. I was initially thinking of using some sort of camera imagery, but I’ve seen it a thousand times. The goal was that this logo should look different than the rest of the pack. No cameras, no lenses, no film. But the circles that run up the left of the “S” were inspired by the sprocket holes that are on film.
Since we were able to secure the entire name as the domain name (SialiaPhotography.com) I wanted to make sure that the entire name would be included in the logo, not just the commonly used name. “Sialia” uses a font called Harrington. The curves worked well with the “S”. For the “Photography” line, I wanted a clean font that would also work as a button or headline font on the website (Gill Sans, in case you’re wondering).
This logo breaks my general rule that a logo needs to work in solid black and white. I figured that this logo would be used in places that would allow for a four color process, or tints of the logo.
Something else that I had to consider with this logo was that it would be used as a watermark on her photos. After watching a few hours of TV (where every network has a watermark) I had some ideas of how I could effectively use different opacities. For the watermark, the text has a higher opacity level than the “S”. But the “S” is the most noticeable part.
This logo works well with the website because they were designed as parts of a whole. Since I wanted to have a logo centered website, I needed to make sure that the logo would be centered. Plus, it allows Jess the opportunity to use the logo anywhere on her photos without being a distraction.
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September 25, 2009 at 10:19 pm
[...] designing the logo (see details here) I started designing the website. My first layout was based on a wordpress ...