Projects

Designing A Logo For A Side Project

Keenen Charles

Jan 4, 2019 — 3 min read

When designing a logo I try to think of a few ideas and then quickly test them out and see how they feel when translated to a digital image. I'm not a designer so I don't go for any designs that are too extravagant. I try to keep it simple but also not too obvious as well. First I look at designing an icon for the project and then a wordmark that goes well with it. Here's the process I took this time.

Icon

I came up with a few basic ideas for the icon. A literal wave icon, sound waves, and a waveform. The first idea I tried was the literal wave. It felt like a wave could match the chill vibe I was going for with the site.

That didn't turn out too great...

What was I thinking...

Then I tried the sound waves but it just looked like a WIFI icon no matter which direction I rotated it in. If I kept it as a full circle it looked like a target...not really what I'm going for.

While building the site I made a basic version of the waveform idea and added it to the nav bar as a placeholder. To keep it simple I made them out of solid bars with rounded corners like the cards used in the website's UI. I liked how it turned out but I wasn't sold on it. Gradually it grew on me though and I decided to improve it and use it as the final icon. I think it fits the site without being too obvious like the other ideas I had.

Wordmark

Again I like to keep it simple when designing a wordmark. Rarely will I mix and match fonts or make any customisations to the text. I just wanted something super simple that could work on any screen size and still feel playful.

The first decision I made was that I wanted to have the letters really condensed. Why? I'm not sure but it felt right. I tried an all uppercase version first.

Meh. That didn't capture the feeling I was going for. Lowercase was definitely the way to go.

The toughest decision left then was which font. So I went through each one I had installed and some online font directories. This was the closest contender.

I really liked it but in the end I settled on a rounded font I had. It maintained the playful feel I was going for and the rounded-ness matched all the rounded corners throughout the site.

Here's The Final Version

It's not perfect but I like it. It's pretty simple and can work on all backgrounds and screen sizes. What do you think? And what's my process for designing a logo for projects like?

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