More illustrated logos by Yours Truly.

I love type and I love illustration so what better way to combine the two than in full colour illustrated logos. When I first left school I took a year off and decided to work in a commercial art studio before heading off to art college. I spent almost the whole year laying out Letraset and learning about the spacing, leading and kerning of many different typefaces. Thus my love for type began, although I have to admit the Letrasetting was amazingly time consuming and laborious compared to the ease with which one sets type today...still I enjoyed the challenge!!

Pictured here are three logos I was commissioned to create by different businesses and a sketch of the first draft of one of those logos. As you can see “Ambiance” started off quite differently than it ended but the seed of the idea, the typeface, remained. The concept was embellished with English Ivy and a more formal, decorative flourish.

The "Harmony" logo above was designed for a company in California who wanted to depict a combination of the Monarch butterfly and the California Poppy, both of which are indigenous to that companies geographic area, along with the name of the store "Harmony" in an elegantly flowing script.

“Panache” was designed for a store in the Temecula wine region of California.

“Created by Mother Nature” isn’t a logo per se but has the feel of one. I had so much fun with the type on this one, changing fonts and fading the colour from top to bottom. I added the type about 5 years after I had created the central motif and was pleased with the results. This design is now featured in my Cafe Press store and part of the profits from it are donated to Maine Farmland Trust whose offices are in downtown Belfast.

All of my logos are created with watercolour paints and my beloved Winsor Newton Series 7 brushes or colour pencils on watercolour blocks by Aquarelle. The type is hand drawn with design flourishes added to create a uniquely decorative word. The only time I use a computer is to scan the image, create digital files of the artwork, change any small imperfections and resize the logos to fit their end need.

I am looking forward to designing more logos in the future and hope I am lucky enough to be commissioned to create delicious ones like that in the post two back for The Sugar Shack Cupcakery. I love the look of desserts and enjoy making and EATING them too.

If you are a small business owner interested in having a logo designed for your business please feel free to get in touch (you can click on 'e-mail' under my profile pic when you click on View Profile above in the right hand column) and ask me about my concept for marketing on a small budget!!