This is Part 8 of the Logo Design Round-Up series. This ongoing series showcases a collection of logos and brand marks, self submitted by a bunch of freelance designers and creative folk in many creative areas.
These designers use the logos to sell, promote, brand and market their various skills.You can see how I designed my own logo in this post : Bastardizing Helvetica for the ImJustCreative Logo Design
If you want to be part of this logo design series, then details can be found at the bottom of this post.
What this collection is not
This is not a competition, it’s not a best of, it’s not a who has the best logo, it’s not a collection of logos that I have chosen. They are logos supplied by those that wanted to be part of this post. And a huge thank you to everyone who has submitted.
This series will go on indefinitely, all the time there are designers prepared to submit their logo designs. If you have submitted recently, but your logo is not included in this post, don’t worry, it will be in the next one. I keep each post limited to around 12 logos per post, on a first come first served type of basis.
The logo submissions are displayed in alphabetical order, so no favoritism on my part here. :)
Logo Roundup – Part 8
Joshua W. Geiger – 1981 – http://www.NineteenEightyOne.com
To understand the reasoning behind the creation of the 1981 logo, you should know that I believe the more energy and symbolism one puts into something, the better the chance he/she will have of success. I put a lot of intentional, relevant and direct symbolism in just about every aspect of my life. This philosophy is what drove me to find the most important part of my life, in order to incorporate whatever that might have been into my logo. So, I chose the year I was born, 1981. My birth of course symbolizing the beginning of my life and everything from that point on. I knew creation was going to play an important role here, specifically because of what I do, create identities… logos.
I knew I needed to use the numbers 1, 9, 8, and 1. Where the real symbolism comes in, is what you can create with the logo font itself (simplicity was key in the font design because there is a recurring theme of breaking elements and concepts down to their most rudimentary form, very much what you do in the logo design process). With the introduction of unity, If you align each element (number) vertically, then horizontally to create one symbol, you will create a simple Circle Cross (a circle with a vertical line running through it, and a horizontal line running through it). This cross is actually the Cosmic Circle Cross, or the Simple Cross of the Cosmos. This Cosmic Cross was probably our earliest symbol of companionship with the Cosmos and existence. It is a recognition sign of Divine Order throughout the Universe. As our understanding of the complex spiritual structure of creation progressed, this simple Cosmic Cross became the famous “Tree of Life”. As a side note, the Cosmic Cross is sometimes referred to as the Celtic Cross. This cross is much older than official Christianity, being a representation of the Sun and the quarternal cycle of the seasons and compass (North, East, South, West). This cross represents the beginning, birth… of everything from nothing, omnil or nil.
I realized this is all very important because it fits so well with what I am trying to accomplish with 1981. I create logos. Most of the time, from nothing. Basically, the creation of the 1981 logo should have been the equivalent of a metaphysical “Big Bang” out of which, a successful business was born. You can see this Cosmic Cross as my Favicon when visiting my website. So, basically if you take the year I was born, combine the numbers to create one symbol, you get the oldest representation of creation, humanity knows, which in essence reflects my business quite well. Taking it back to the beginning. If you would like to learn more about this Cosmic Cross, feel free to look up a book called, “Qabalistic Concepts” by William G. Gray. Thanks for reading!
Adam Glynn-Finnegan – Freelance Illustrator & Designer – http://www.adamgf.com
My name is Adam Glynn-Finnegan (everyone knows me as Adam GF). I used to have a typeface logo that emphasised the ‘GF’ in my name.
I thought it was time for a change as recently I have shifted from more graphic design work to doing a lot of custom illustrations. My work all comes from my illustration ability and so I decided to create a handwritten font. I liked the designs of Threadless logo and Hufnagel bicycles logo. I wanted that handcrafted quality to it, but it had to be classy and not fun. I take my design seriously it is not a hobby for me. I wanted a logo that could not easily be replicated (so not just a typeface logo).
So I went with that style and started sketching out some ideas, individual letters and connecting letters. I thought it really important that the ‘adamgf’ text all connected together and was defined as one word, rather than separating ‘adam’ and ‘gf’.
As with all my logo designs I sketched ideas out first, scanned them in (well actually I took photos and USB-ed them in as I don’t have a scanner that works!) and then in Adobe Illustrator, I created the shapes of each letter with the pen and fill tools.
You can see my logo in-situ at my portfolio website: www.adamgf.com
Thierry Zoghbi – Architectural Visualiser – http://thierryzoghbi.co.uk
As I currently don’t have my own company, I have to operate under my own name which is also used as my brand. I was trying to create a badge styled logo, that would fit in with the dark theme of my website. Sticking with my name, I experimented with different fonts and styles until I achieved the look shown.
As working in the Architectural Visualisation industry, I wanted my logo to be clean cut with a modern sophisticated look that is where the web 2.0 style was created as I thought this would help bring the logo up to date with current “in-fashion” styles I also use this logo and style on my business cards to keep everything nice and consistent.
Bryan Connor – Young Freelancer – http://www.bryanconnor.com
This logo represents my personal site and blog for young freelancers. This logo follows a complete branding and name shift from ‘connor studio’ to ‘Bryan Connor – Young & Freelancing’ (almost entirely based on the availability of domain name ). The logo is more or less based around the most beautiful font in the world, Archer, and reflects my deep love for slab serifs.
The lowercase is meant to suggest a casual and youthful feel. Colors are subdued and collected, they reflect my personality, my manor with clients, as well as the colors on the rest of the site.
The tagline is quite important to the logo and therefore my current branding strategy. It symbolizes the blog which is meant to be the place for young freelancers to get the advice, the help, and the inspiration they need to be the next generation of freelance rockstar.
Brandon Houston – Graphic Designer & Web Developer – www.logixstudios.com
The Logix name has been around for several years now but recently I decided to establish the brand as more of a company than a name to represent my freelance work. My work ranges from graphic design to programming, so I needed a name that could somehow encompass everything I did.
Logix stemmed from the word logistics and was chosen to symbolize the connections between the variety of marketing areas I worked on. That led into the tagline I established, “Making Creative Work”, which can be taken as the company that makes creative projects but also as a way of saying that Logix takes the creative process and makes it work. I thought it was a nice play on words.
The Logix font is custom-made. I wanted to give it a flowing appearance of the letters merging into each other while still keeping it readable. The font I created gives it a bit of a technical look while not making it too industrial. The tagline is a clean Avant Garde font to compliment the logo.
Currently Logix is going through an entire rebrand from the ground up, including a new website, business cards, and a new marketing strategy.
Scot Scott – Modern Media Arts – www.biohertz.com
The Biohertz logo has been around for almost 10 years, undergoing minor changes from time to time adding little curves here and there. The name Biohertz was the melding of human (bio) and tech (hertz).
Back when all the talk was about mega-hertz, I thought the human element was really always going to push our capabilities. It also sounded like “bio-hazard”, so I took the symbol for bio-hazard (which looks very dangerous) and pushed and pulled it into a sharp, equally dangerous digital looking version. This became the logo for my company, which was founded years later.
The logo is hard edged, and fast looking and sharp. The colors mostly always black and white which symbolize simplicity, that approach is carried over to the website. The company offers many services commonly called multi-media, but I am starting to prefer the term modern-media as we are challenged each day with staying modern and above the curve.
Clemente Gomez – Interactive Web Developer – http://kreativeking.com
I’m a big fan of simplicity and minimalism. I think if you can leave an impact, with just the bare necessities, you have done your job. Anything extra is just fluff. For my logo, I wanted something that said “me” right from the first glance, but also something that wasn’t too complicated that the viewer would have to stare at it for several minutes trying to out what is going on.
For the type I wanted something striking and slim, but not feminine. I think Helvetica Neue UltraLight is the perfect font to pull this off. In the end, I believe my logo is memorable and won’t get lost in the thousands of logos that exist on the net. Hope you like it. Also just in case you haven’t realized, my logo is my silhouette.
Luis Lopez – Creative Designer and Animateur – http://www.exxcorpio.com
Exxcorpio is my company name, I like those animals and I want to create a logo with some simplicity.
I used the telson of this animal to finish the “I” and make it a kind of symbol for my brand. A sans serif typography to make the logo stands up with the two corporate colors, green and grey.
I also have a character who goes some times with the logo.
Cecilie Amundsen – Logo, Web & Graphic Designer – www.stiligececilie.net
My name is Cecilie, and at the time being, I’m just a design student.
I haven’t actually chosen a design path, and atm, I love working with logos and branding, web design and markup, graphic design and a little photography. I wanted to get my name out there early, and show off my stuff in a personal portfolio. That’s when I started out on my logo.
I wanted my logo to reflect my personality. It also needed to be simple, have an icon that could stand alone and colours that I like. I also wanted it to be girly, but at the same time a bit naughty. Althoug I am a girl, I am fond of gaming and cars, so I didn’t want it to be just feminine.
After a lot of sketching and different directions, I came up with the little girly smiley with horns. I felt that it reflected the terms above, and alot of people seemed to like it. Also, it can be used with plenty variations of colour and backgrounds. The type is actually Impact, I felt it just worked perfect with the icon, althoug I never use Impact that much. Pink and brown are also a perfect colour choice for this logo, imo. The girly pinkness, and the naughty brownness ;)
I hope to build a reputation and get myself out there before I start working. My biggest dream is to be a freelance designer, and I hope someday that will be possible.
Antoney Calvert – creative studio – http://colour-form.com
I’ve been freelancing for nearly 4 years and wanted to trade under a different name than my own. I chose a name that conveyed the kind of services I offered to my clients. As a graphic designer I work with colour and form – manipulating each to produce a desired outcome – so the name colourform conveys this idea.
The 3 coloured circles reinforce this further. The 3 primary colours of light from which all other colours are created. The overlapping form which they are arranged in also reveal the secondary colours, which happen to be the primary colours of pigment inks and paint – hence screen and print. I work in both mediums so the circles represent this range of my work.
I was surprised not to find many more examples of this colour theory logo idea around the internet. If anyone knows of similar concepts I’d be interested to find out.
Mike Watford – Web designer/developer – http://grumpybeardesign.com
The Grumpybear name is something my wife gave me due to my nature in the morning and my brother did me the honer of sketching the bear and I did the color work.
I enjoy the irony behind it because despite the name I’m very laid back. I wanted the fonts to represent my love of graffiti and have a bit of my geek showing.
Sam Marks – Freelance Web Designer – www.quilo.co.uk
The typeface is obviously my favorite Helvetica with a couple of slight tweaks to enable me to stamp my own style onto it.
The logo usually appears in a couple of ways with different colours and effects to accompany it. At present this is my favorite way of using it with a nice mix of colours behind enabling me to leave the logo colour in pure white making the name “Quilo” stand out a little more.
End of Part 8 – Submit Your Own Logo
If you want to add your own logo to forthcoming versions of this post, then check out this post ‘I want your creative business logo for forthcoming post‘. If you do submit a logo, then please ensure you submit a few paragraphs about how the logo came into being etc. Without this information I can’t add your logo.
Flickr Group Pool
I have recently started posting all previous submitted logo’s to a Flickr Pool called ‘Designers Brands & Logos‘ to further max the self promotion for you guys.
Woop.