Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Playing with Logos Again

My name is Kellie and I have a problem. For the life of me I cannot seem to leave well enough alone when it comes to design. I know the logo I've been using for my photography is just fine and dandy. That it probably doesn't even really matter in this stage of the ball game but I'm not happy with it and I insist on changing it much to my husband's chagrin. Right brained people just don't understand.

Part of my problem is that I have a hard time committing to a single design style. I'm an equal opportunity design lover and have a hard time settling on just one. Why do you think I change my blog look every month? Because there's no way I'd ever be satisfied with any one design!

I've been doing a lot of wishing/dreaming/journaling etc. about what kind of photography I'd like to to do and what kind of client I would like to work for. The words that jumped out from my scribbling tend to be in the fun, lighthearted vein. I like to work with people who have a sense of humor and like to have fun. Looking around at other photographer's logos/identities I find myself more attracted to the fun and funky. At this point I don't want to rule anything out so I don't want a logo that immediately pegs me as a certain sort of photographer (i.e. one who only does babies, or weddings, or families etc).

So here's where I'm at. I tried doing two different fonts for my name and the word "photography" but it just doesn't look right. My last name and the word "photography" start and end with the same letters so they look awful similar which bugs me when they're in different fonts next to each other. I'm currently leaning towards the first one. Opinions?


I played around with different watermarks and like that I can switch the colors around so that the watermark would work for both dark and light colored photos. Here's two recent photos from my Project 365 that I used as an example.


And just for the sakes of comparison, here's a photo with my current logo watermark:

4 comments:

Miranda said...

I really like your old one (where your name is in a different font that the photography word). But that being said the old one looks great for things like weddings, and the new one would look great for things like kids photos, family photos. Good luck! They are both beatuiful

James Furlo said...

I'm in favor of the more minimalistic design since I want to see the photo and not the logo.

Perhaps you could shrink the square part down and only use that on photos, but in other places also use your business name. HP, and others, do that and it seems to work pretty well.

Aly sun said...

Oh this is an issue for me too. I am constantly redesigning my logo (check out the link to my website and see my latest -- my new font is called "Kelly" :). I also have the "P" "P" thing going on and find it limiting.

I like the funkier/fun design on your newest design, but the "k" in the logo is different. I really thought it was a coat hook for the first few seconds. I thought, "Hmm, I wonder what the significance of the coat hook is. Kellie always has a reason for her designs." And then it dawned on me that it is a "k." It might be only me. It's cute, now that I know what I am looking at. :)

Kelleigh Ratzlaff Designs said...

HA! I couldn't tell what that thing was, either! Of course, I get it now. How about using your current font (the pretty one) and putting "kp" in a box? And, I do like the box idea, because the point of a watermark is so that no one else steals your photo. Many photographers plaster it across a photo, so yours is already minimalist!