Mark Shangraw was looking for a new logo as he was restructuring his photography business – something more boutique, more hand crafted. After listening to the goals for this new venture I knew that they needed something with his ‘hand’ in it. After some pencil sketches I knew we needed something authentic and uniquely representing his own namesake. I asked both he and his wife to send me his name both in manuscript and cursive to compare….. and sure enough his own signature shone as ‘the one.’ It wasn’t perfect….. it was a touch filled in and hard to read. I went through some steps to clean it up, vectorize it, create slight tweaks for legibility of certain letters. While you can’t easily read his name……. it is a stylized signature logo. It won’t be used without a reference to his website etc. so nobody was concerned. The PORTRAIT ART section was a classic serif font to lend itself to his traditional photography knowledge and roots but yet in an upscale modern way. A nice combination of creative flow and elegant timeless style.
Here’s the funny part….. this logo had long been approved when Chad showed me how popular signature logos and watermarks are becoming, apps making them and such……. I didn’t know. Glad I designed it before I saw the other links or I would have wanted to go a completely different way maybe just because! 😉 However, an authentic signature feels real. A ‘fake one’ that someone has designed for you by an app……. or someone for hire….. has zero soul.
Had a great time designing their new logo! If you need a logo revamp, let me know! I live for this type of conceptual artwork.