Building My Branding

Making a Name for Myself

This project was the moment where I would officially brand myself as a designer for hire. It was a rather daunting task, to say the very least. I was finally going to be doing what I see professionals doing all around me every day. There was a moment of hesitation and uncertainty when starting, as I could not yet understand how I could be able to become the professionals that I look up to so much, but I knew that there was no holding back now!

We were tasked with drawing a minimum of 20 logos to get the ball rolling. You heard that right! Twenty potential options that we would attach ourselves to. My initial 18 sketches were my period of exploring the types of fonts I could put my name in and my passion for smiles, television, and bringing in the sunshine, but you can begin to see that I was dipping my toe into designing dinosaurs for my logo. Some even have a cheesy catchphrase that I was planning to attach to my brand, but I opted to dump that in future drafts.

Upon completing my sketches, I needed to bring them into Illustrator (not Photoshop, which was a killer) to revise and refine them. It should not surprise that these revisions were not my best work; you can see for yourself! I got feedback for reviews: "your sketches look better than your revisions." I felt so embarrassed at the time but could not help but laugh hysterically because they were right! The ability to use the pen tool was severely lacking, with lines looking bland, chunky, and flat, with some even sloppily intersecting.

Not satisfied with how these turned out, I went back to the drawing board and produced 17 more sketches. I was still hooked on the idea of how to arrange my initials to make a flashy logo. Like that of Louis Vuitton. How on Earth do they make it look so easy?! Not finding any luck in doing so, I decided I would throw all this severe business out the window and have some fun! This is where my dinosaur lad started to evolve and become his personality.

At last, I had it…sketch #35. This is what I was looking for. I want to note that some people tried to dissuade me from going ahead with my dinosaur idea because "it just wasn't you." I was stubborn, though, as not only do I love dinosaurs, but I appear as someone big, gruff, and tough, but is a great big sweetheart and goofball on the inside. Dinosaurs can laugh too!

However, before settling on it, I still needed to make it a fair match for the other contenders. The second batch of revised sketches was much more visually impressive and showcased my better understanding of all of Illustrator's tools. This is especially evident in using the width tool on my pen strokes to give my logos more volume; God Bless that tool! As you can tell, #35 was the victor in the end, and I was beyond excited. All hail Tank the T-Rex!

Wanting to stress my love for character design and animation, I wanted to create a few more designs for my business cards and résumé. Tank was not just for my logo, but I wanted him to be incorporated into every aspect of my brand and have him become an icon of sorts. Speaking of my brand, my color palette was heavily inspired by lush jungles and rainforests from the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods and colors that would complement the bounty of greens. Interestingly enough, however, some people were not big fans of the "blood red" font I used in my logo, and I was initially hesitant to change it. Nonetheless, I took the risk to see what things would look like if I had the text match my white-on-red header font present on my letterhead. The results were stunning! The white on red in the logo helped balance things, so they were not so heavy in the front.

I am incredibly proud of the final results and feel like I have become my designer by opting to have my brand be focused on a character rather than fancy fonts. Tank and I will take the world by storm, and we hope that we can help you bring your projects to life and a smile to your face!