Logo Designers Share Their First And Last Logos
July 6, 2009 | Thoughts & Words By Sneh Roy | 10 Comments
Twitter is a funny one, yes it is. It is highly malleable. It bends and twists to suit your needs. And though it might not feature on any of those lists that design bloggers love to concoct as a place to find inspiration, it definitely is one such place on the web. I find random bursts of inspiration on Twitter everyday and the idea for this blog post came in one such burst. I asked a bunch of logo designers whether they wanted to share their first logo ever made and their latest one and 14 of them gladly obliged, well 15 if you count me too. Nathan Sarlow of CobaltCow did a similar post where logo designers shared their first paid logos, which was fun to see. Today a different bunch of creative people boldly share their first ever logo for the whole world to see and also their latest, a visual manner to span their designing journey over the years [months for some]. I want to thank you guys for sharing your work, it has been real fun seeing where you guys started out and where you’ve arrived.
Michael Mangelli | Michael Mangelli on Logopond
"I have been doing logo design for a year, although I have been doing webdesign and print work for 3-5 years."
Jeanne Buffkin | Jeanne Buffkin on Logopond
"The logos are AcuSpa and Rejuve, my first and last. AcuSpa was done on Sept 27 of 2007. But I didn’t really get heavy into logo design until about a year ago."
Nathan Sarlow | Cobalt Cow
"My first logo was circa 1996."
JT Knight | Knights Creative
"I’ve been designing logos for 6 years. My first paid logo was for an appraisal company in Tacoma, WA called America 1st Appraisals. My last logo is for Red Fox Solar. They’re a startup solar company in Ontario selling residential-scale solar power systems. So new, it hasn’t made it to my portfolio yet."
Euan Mackenzie | Euan Mackenzie
"My first logo was made around March 2008 as part of a college project but I really started becoming passionate about logo design in June 2008."
Roy Smith |Roy Smith Design
"Corporate identity for Jet Petroleum was one of my first logos that I did at Art School. My latest logo is still underwraps so Hello-LED is one of my most recent."
Gareth Hardy | Down With Design
"For my first logo in Spetember 2004, initially the project began as a self-initiated brief at University. I chose to create my own extreme sports brand including the name. I decided to encompass the fact that in extreme sports, be it BMX, Skateboarding, Snowboarding etc. you are likely to get hurt, often when you are pushing yourself as far as you can go. "see:evil" symbolises embracing the fear, and the best way I could illustrate this was to play on the familiar three wise monkeys image, but with a twist. About a year later some snowboarders/skateboarders I know asked me if they could use it to represent their collective, through which the logo was printed onto t-shirts, and promotional stickers.
The last logo that I completed as a signed off brand was for www.fraai-webdesign.nl in May 2009. Fraai is a freelance web design company in Holland that specialises in bespoke wordpress websites. The dutch word "fraai" means "beautiful, pretty, attractive". For this design I was asked to create a visually compelling icon that would reflect this definition. The icon also symbolises an abstract tulip, in reference to the Netherlands. The petals of the design can also be viewed as folders, showing that Fraai is professional and organised. When colour is absent, the image of a web is revealed."
Yossi Belkin | Yossi Graphic Design
Cory Ottenwess | Ocana Design
"I’ve been doing logo design for about 5 years, and have learned a HUGE amount about design and illustration since then. The last logo, isn’t necessarily the most recently designed, but it is the most recently sold."
Leighton Hubbell | Leighton Hubbell
"The first one (that I have available) was actually done by hand (ink and bristol board) in 1988 for Powerlite bicycles. I was an employee of GT Bicycles in their art department. I redrew it in Illustrator for reference awhile ago. The latest one that I can show is for BagTrakker, a patented luggage tracking card service. If the first date was any indication, I have been designing logos for about 22 years. Whew! Man, I almost hate to admit that."
Richard Scott | Richard Scott on Logopond
"I have been designing logos for 3-4 years. One of my first logos was for Instant Adventures. A bright, modern and fun kids toy brand. The tag line was ‘Build. Create. Play.’ The last brand I put together was created from scratch in terms of name and icon. In Yoruba mythology ‘Oya’ is a warrior goddess. She is seen in aspects of wind, lightning, fertility, fire, and magic…. I tried to capture all these elements in a modern and progressive way."
Bojan Stefanovic | Logoholik
"My first logo was designed in 1994 for a family run print business in Belgrade, Serbia. Sky Of Love is my most recent logo."
Fabian Marchinko | Fabian Marchinko on Logopond
"My first paying gig was for an Arts And Craft Store in Scotland named The Creative Location. My current client is Viewpoint Lighting and this version is their preferred choice."
Sneh Roy | Little Box Of Ideas | Sneh Roy On Logopond
"My first paid logo was in February 2009. And I have been designing logos for only about 6 months and learning a lot everyday. But today, I am going to share a logo I designed for my food website in 2001, almost 8 years ago. I didn’t have a sketch, only the idea in my head. I just doodled on my Wacom tablet till I was happy with it and the logo for Gel’s Kitchen, as it was back then, was born. My last logo was designed for a fun exercise on another blog where I had to rebrand Trish’s Contemporary Native Brand."
Hope you enjoyed looking at everyone’s first and last logos. I will be doing another roundup soon, so if you want your logos to be featured, please send me an email.
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Awesome post Sneh! This was both exciting and insightful! There were actually some great firsts in there! Thanks so much for including my first and most recent
great post, thanks !
Awesome post. Notice how over time logo designers start seeing the beauty in text alone and stop relying so much on icons and imagery. I’m a sucker for good typography.
Antonea Nabors´s last blog ..13 examples of new retro and vintage packaging
Awesome stuff LBOI.. was a very interesting article. Thanks so much for including me haha. Looking forward to your next one!
-Michael Mangelli
-noxie Designs
Thanks for including me in this. It’s interesting seeing the difference between everyone’s first and last logos. Compared to the others my first is a little embarrassing, but I sure was proud of it at the time!
JT Knight´s last blog ..The Groove | Club Flyer
Sneh,
Thanks for including me. It seems that I am one of the elder statesman in the group, but very interesting to see the range of work and experience in the bunch. Nice post.
Leighton Hubbell´s last blog ..Freelance is a lot like dating.
Hi Sneh…thanks for compiling all these logos for us as it is really interesting to see how great designers have learnt in all these years.
Can I add this post on my blog too, with a proper link reffering to your post.
By the way thanks for stopping by on my blog and dropping a comment.
Graphic Design Blog´s last blog ..38 Business Cards of Top Graphic Designers – The inspiring creative gurus
Nathan gets my prize for most improved, with his progress from the “circa 1996″ illustration (it’s cute though, and made me smile along with the best mates).
David Airey´s last blog ..Woolmark logo
Thanks everyone for participating and posting your thoughts on this!
Thank you for including my logo http://www.fraai-webdesign.nl, Gareth Hardy (www.downwithdesign.com) did a great job on it!