Hi Reader

Last week I told the story of my business name and today I wanted to share about my logo and my stance on logo design. For both of the business names I chose to have my business name be the logo. In design terms it’s called a wordmark logo. You focus on making the words of your name be a design in themselves because of the fonts you chose and how you arrange or stack them.

For my first business name Thorpe & Co. I wanted something elegant and stylish. It didn’t take me long to land on Playfair Display as my main font. After playing around with several layout options I enlarged the size of the ampersand symbol and offset the spacing of Thorpe to the top left and Co. to the bottom right. I’d tried then to tie in some sort of logo symbol to my design, I really like the idea of an illustrated feather or flower, specifically a poppy. After trying many renditions, I felt it made the design overly feminine and ultimately decided to drop the designed element and simply use the wordmark logo.

After spending so much time agonizing over my first business name and logo. I knew I wanted to move much quicker with Sisu Site Shop. This time I was desiring a more masculine minimal feel. I quickly decided on combining the tall and thin font, Antonio Light, for Sisu and Shop and a thin script font Amsterdam Four in the center and angled up for Site. For some applications I added a drop shadow to help make the words stand out. As a secondary logo, I made a stacked version specifically for use cases where I’d need a square logo. But rather than just stacking the words directly on top of each other I increased the size of the S’s and placed Sisu centered and Site down and to the left and Shop farther down and to the right.

Later on while working on a client's project I found a modern asymmetrical circle design that I really liked in Canva. I changed the colors of the elements to my brand colors and added my stacked logo variation in the main circle. This logo variation nicely enhances and compliments my logo set.

My take on logo design is that its importance depends on the use case and the end goal. In my case, I am an educator and service provider. I’m not looking to build a billion dollar brand nor did I have the resources to outsource this in the beginning stages of my business.

Some of my clients have had the budget and desire to have a graphic designed element in the logos, while others are really happy with just a word mark logo. My best advice is to start. If a wordmark logo will help you get started helping people start there. If you have a clear vision and want a highly visual brand and your marketing plan relies heavily on brand recognition, put the time and resources into hiring a professional, whose style you really resonate with to craft you a design that is everything you’re looking for and will serve you for several years.

One thing to keep in mind is that brands and logos will evolve and change over time. It’s not a one and done thing. Now, I’m not saying you need to update and redesign every year. You want your brand decisions for last for several years up to a decade. I’d say it’s a good idea to reevaluate your branding and your website every 3-5 year to ensure it still accurately aligns with and reflects your brand, your values, and your offerings.

One of the reasons we created our Brand VIP Days is to assist those of you who know you need a website but are not yet in a place or position that you want or need to spend weeks or months on a deep and expensive full branding package. We’ll help you craft the essentials needed to move forward with a website design project: a simple wordmark logo, curated color palette, and typography recommendations. If you are looking for more you can always book a 2nd day or more for additional assets based on your desired priority.

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Cheers,

Click to learn more about our Brand VIP Days.

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Brenda Thorpe​
Founder + Designer
Sisu Site Shop
​sisusiteshop.com​
brenda@sisusiteshop.com

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*This email may contain affiliate links by which I may receive a small amount of compensation at no extra cost to you. Hopefully you will find them to be a great benefit. We only recommend products and programs we use and love!*

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