The modern brand began when businesses wanted to establish a trustworthy relationship with customers. The very concept of a brand, and a logo, was to make sure that customers could trust you, and continue to buy your products over competitors, even if your products looked similar.
There are a lot of logos out there today. So making sure your logo is clean and professional, and being used in a consistent manner, is crucial to earning your trusted place in the minds of your loyal customers or clients.
In representing our series of 3 entrepreneurship courses at the University of Michigan, we wanted a logo to use in promotional materials.
Since the course material centered around continuing to strive for success following failure, I felt like the phoenix was an apt symbol, rising from the ashes.
My client wanted to convey a sense of elegant hotels with front-door concierge service, without losing touch with their independent clientele.
A stately hotel with just a few floors helped create a prestigious, yet intimate image.
To convene regular get-togethers of students and former alumni of the course series, the Excellent Sheep Society was born, and became a springboard for networking and mentoring beyond mere course attendance.
We wanted to create a seal that was reminiscent of the University of Michigan seal. The "Cool Sheep" image helped tie our course mascot in with William Deresiewicz's book Excellent Sheep.
We felt it was time to advance the maturity level of our imagery, including upgrading the ESS seal.
Replacing the shield and "Cool Sheep" with a more abstract sheep head helped create a more sophisticated look. Keeping the laurel wreaths and oil lamps maintained its connection with the UMich seal.
Advanced Data Exchange launched their Cleaner Commerce initiative to promote the incredible ecological benefits to converting from paper-based to digital-based business operations, like reducing deforestation, pollution, and energy usage.
This lockup design added the Cleaner Commerce logotype to the existing ADX logomark, along with a design showing the letter "l" sprouting into a seedling.
The client was against a round logo from the start. But after 72 revisions that didn't make the cut, I asked if I could try a round logo. They loved it.
To craft a "national skyline", iconic buildings from San Francisco, Denver, Chicago, Atlanta, and New York were combined in the logomark design.
GFN wanted a new logo to update their existing logo's globe feature.
The falcon provides its ability to spread its wings and seemingly float in mid-air on the drafts, with little care for the force of gravity.
The purple color of the logotype conveys a regal sense, while the falcon is created from golden brush strokes.
When trying to come up with a logo for a photographer, one might naturally think of using the image of a camera.
But Andrew Estey specialized in architectural photography, which inspired me to take the camera and change its orientation and size to turn it into an architectural construction itself.
Bash 57's concept involved dropping an old '40s to late '50s dance club and diner into the modern world, complete with swing night and the occasional sock hop.
An artistic logotype helped harken back to classic automobile badges, while the stacked records evoke the ideal of a jukebox.
Although Torch Insight had a rather obvious play to a literal torch for its logo, they deliberately wanted to look for a different symbol.
For the logomark, I played with the idea of a pie chart that transformed into the illumination of a sunrise.
When Convergys was building its Pitchgallery presentation builder, they wanted a creative brand to match to help encourage personnel to take advantage of its abilities.
With the creative theme in mind, the logomark resembles a gallery wall, but also the presentation slides found within the builder.
HROA wanted a logo that inspired feelings of timeless big city hotel properties.
An elegant wood revolving door and red and gold awning became the logomark, along with a background element that resembled the vintage street signs bolted to downtown buildings.
I started designing logos almost 30 years ago when I started designing my own, and I’ve been designing logos ever since. When I got to the corporate world with Convergys 25 years ago, I began learning about branding systems and coherent brand identities.
Do you have a need for a new logo? Do you need help refreshing and updating your logo for a new era in your business? Do you have an old logo that someone made for you, but you need it converted to a vector image so you can enlarge it to huge sizes? Contact me today, and let’s start creating your next logo or branding system.