Initially I deliberated over whether to go with my personal name or that of a company. Research lead me to believe that a fledgling designer is wiser to go with his or her personal name because it raises their own personal profile in the industry. I can see the sense in this but I don't see it as a conclusive answer. I have, however, given over more time to developing my own name as a brand.
The problem that seemed to arise early on is that my own personality feels as diverse as my tastes. How do you nail down such an eclectic view. I wanted to present myself as sophisticated and trustworthy yet fun and relaxed; as innovative, yet approachable. I used branding techniques and toolkits that I found on the net to try to identify core values. This helped to focus things down a little but it didn't give a eureka moment.
I knew that I didn't want to develop a logo as such, so started to play with type and colour. I really like the cool scandinavian palettes but early experiments with these were less than impressive. They lacked the punch and solidity of richer colours. I finally settled on two colours that I felt had some longevity: a rich velvety lime green and a dark earthy brown. I think the colours came to me through a combination of viewing the Elmwood website and a visit to Tebay Services where similar colours are used to give identity to some of the food areas.
The colours are rich and sophisticated and yet borrow from nature and suggest organic growth. They seem to straddle the urban and natural environments and as an expression of personal identity I'd settle for that. I gave the green a greater depth by overlaying a low opacity gradient.
After much experimenting with fonts I finally settled on a combination of Univers 75 Black, modern and solid, and Asenine Regular, a fine and elegant sans-serif font. My name contains a number of e's; the Asenine type seems to deal with these and the two end descenders in a pleasing way. Together, the two fonts appear to complement one another in a way that other combinations did not. Furthermore, they're an approximate expression of the personality I wish to project.
In my explorations I had considered using hand-crafted type and introducing decorative elements. Both of these features are representative of my interests but I could not reconcile them here with the embodiment of style. Although lively, to my mind these efforts appear a little crude and childlike.
The idea that I have developed is quite stylish/sophisticated but I realise that it is also quite dull. It is still a work in progress. I have begun to consider different papers as a result of contacting paper suppliers and requesting samples. However, I have not really thought carefully enough about the format, designing something that people can truly engage with. I want to find a way to bring humour or originality into these expressions of identity. At the moment they run the risk of being insipid and faceless rather than personable and playful.
