Personal Logo Design

This was a self-lead project that was not required for a class. I wanted to create a logo that I could personally use on my website, portfolio, and resume in place of my own photo when necessary. I created two versions, one with my name and one without, however I tend to lean toward using the name-less version much more often. I did end up using the final result of this project on assignments for different classes which required me to create resumes, or to create this portfolio website that I still use to this day!

When designing my logo, I wanted to use images that mean a lot to me as a person. Two things that have always meant a lot to me and been some of my favorite symbols in my life are hummingbirds, and tiger lilies.

Hummingbirds are always moving around, seemingly very free in their flight and the choices that they make, and confident in their choices without much chance to slow down and think about it. I have lived in several different states around the country throughout my life, through childhood and leaving to attend a college all the way across the country from my family. In making those choices, I felt extremely free and confident, and it helped me to not feel “tied down” to any one area and gave me the freedom to want to move around and experience different things in life. As such, the hummingbird makes me feel like I have a connection to everywhere I’ve lived and visited, and the people I’ve created relationships with there, even if I’m not actively close to them. Because of this, I wanted to use the hummingbird as my main symbol to represent myself. Along with that, the hummingbird is also a symbol of good luck in other cultures, and it never hurts to have some good luck by your side with whatever adventure you seek out next.

Tiger lilies have always been one of my favorite flowers, and I have always loved how they represent a fiery fierceness of a tiger alongside the delicate beauty of a flower. I don’t have as much of a deep connection with tiger lilies as I do the hummingbird, as much as I have just loved the flower, it’s beauty, and what it typically symbolizes. Just like the hummingbird, tiger lilies can symbolize good luck, as well as they are popular symbols of confidence, pride, and positivity. Being positive and having confidence in what I do is very important for me and how I strive to be every day, which is why I choose to be represented by the tiger lily.

When designing my symbol, I put my Adobe Illustrator skills I had gained in previous projects and classes to good use. I chose an image of a hummingbird in flight, and two separate images of tiger lilies that I felt I could simplify into vectors clearly in Illustrator. Next, I carefully picked out the colors I wanted to include in my logo. I had previously created a brand image color palette for myself in a previous social media and branding class I was in, so I went ahead and color picked from colors within the palette to start myself off. Pink and purple are two of my personal favorite colors, and colors I feel I use a lot in my art, so I chose those two to represent myself the best. I then decided I wanted the hummingbird to be in the foreground of my image, being the symbol most important to me, and to make it a darker color to pop out more, thus deciding the hummingbird would mainly be purple, and to make the tiger lilies in the background pink.

Once I had turned my images into vectors and placed them how I wanted in my logo, I was playing around with the main background colors. At first, I thought a lighter blue would help make my symbols pop more, but in the end I opted for the same light pink color I had picked from my color palette. This color was also what I had chosen for my hummingbird’s cheek to be, and changing the background to match felt like it helped the hummingbird to blend more seamlessly into the background and helped the entire logo come together. It also felt like it fit my color branding much better than with the blue background.