EDLD 5366 My Brand Logo

Nancy's Logo by Nancy Petrella is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License
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This is the logo I ended with.  I like it the best so far.  I think I have have achieved my goals and made my message as clear as I can without including a lot of text in the image. Along the way I came to realize more of what is important to me and what I strive for in my teaching and in myself.

I did use all 4 principles.  Alignment is not as obvious as the others, but I worked really hard to create good relationships between the curved lines of the bird and the curved lines of the tree.  I wanted them to mimic each other as best as I could possibly manage.  Also, as I layered the Ns on top of, and next to, each other it was important that they lined up appropriately or the tree would not look like a tree.  In the end, I cropped it so that it was aligned nicely with the edges of the space/paper.

I ended up with a cleaner and better organized design.  You can compare them on my wiki page.  I took what I learned from the first one and kept thinking about ways to make the design better.  It occurred to me that I did not have to do so much layering and I began by warping a forward and backward “N”.  The design was much cleaner from the start. 

I wanted to simplify the color as well.  Actually, I wanted a design that would work as well in black and white as it would in color.  I decided to work in black on white, using simple lines of the font aligning each letter carefully as I put it in place to create the tree.  I like the high contrast of the black and white.  I also contrasted the solid silhouette of the bird with the linear marks of the tree.  The really great thing about this deign is that it is a completely vector image so I can add color in any way that I want into the background when it might be necessary and the contrast of black with color will still be very successful.  I also contrasted the fonts that I used.  I ended up using “AR Carter” for the tree which is a might nicer tree like font than any of the others I used yesterday.  I used “AR Hermann” for the two words that I finally decided to use but also contrasting their sizes and tones.

There is a lot of repetition going on in the lines of the tree, which also is contrasted with the open background.  The little flecks of black are actually part of the font, which is part of the reason I think it is a nice match for the tree, also add some texture to the design.

I already mentioned the alignment of each letter in the tree.  I also played around with the placement of the bird and the words so they would line up well with the tree and each other.  That is part of the organization and use of proximity.  The organization is helped by the repeated use of “Y”s and “A”s which make up the busy branches along with the large word at the top of the design.  At the bottom I used only two “N”s and two “C”s in a much calmer repetition along with the smaller word.  The design is divided in two sections a bit more than 1/3 at the top and a bit less than 2/3 at the bottom.  The negative space at the bottom balances the busy repetition of the top.  From side to side the design is relatively symmetrical.

 This is the logo I ended with.  I like it the best so far.  It might be the final version now that I added the words “create” and “innovate”.  I believe I have achieved my goal and made my message as clear as I can without including a lot of text in the image.

As I previously stated, the tree with open branches represents the accepting, open-minded, and knowledge driven part of my personality.  I am always open to possibilities and don’t make decisions based on hearsay.  This is actually a characteristic that will make me a good administrator.

 The trunk represents my steadfast and strong-willed nature. I do not give up when I believe in something, or take on a task for any reason.  Once I put my mind to it I don’t give up.  Failure is not an option for me.

The roots represent loyalty.  I am not a person who betrays confidences or takes commitment lightly. The object the roots protect represents the passionate and caring aspect of my personality.  This fits with loyalty, perfectionist, and strong-willed.  I do not take any job or task lightly, but I am passionate about my son’s well being, my students and art.  Some people describe me as passionate and appreciate the fact that I put heart and soul into my teaching, while others only think of me as huge pain because of those same qualities.  

The bird with outstretched wings represents the free-thinking, creative, and imaginative part of who I am.  By now everyone knows I am an artist.  Art has been a lifelong passion.

What I did not say before and is somewhat subconscious irony, is the prominent repetition of the letter “A”.  You may have noticed, I am a total freak about graduating this program with a 4.0 GPA.  This is symbolic of my almost obsessive quest for perfection.  I have actually chilled a bit in my older age.  My GPA is also important because if I am to sell myself as an administrator I have to show that I am still competitive, viable candidate, and that youth does not have anything over me.

The word “create” makes perfect sense for me.  Initially, I was going to use the word “think” with it because I am always thinking and it has been difficult to get my mind to rest for my whole life, which is different than free-thinking which I did use and relates to create and innovate.  But I did not like the way it sounded with create, so I decided on “innovate”.  

In using innovate, I don’t mean that I am an innovator.  It is more a matter of striving for the best and what is beyond the obvious.  In this way it suits me well because I have always been a person with many ideas and I do consider myself an “ideas” person and a problem solver.  I am a person who can develop alternative solutions, because, in general, I see and interpret things differently than most people do.

Now that I am thinking about it, it appears that I left out some words that describe me.  Even though I did not include them in the list they seem to have been included in a roundabout way.