logo: off the beaten press
Last year, my friend Allison and I were talking about what to name my letterpress machine. I wanted to try to have some separation between the rest of the artwork I was creating and the specific letterpress prints. She came up with the name "Off the Beaten Press." It was perfect. I loved the impression it left on me -- the quirky edge to it and the play on words.
However it was really hard to start a "new brand" as well as maintain my ilovenataliekay side of things. So I have decided to use it for the name for my trailer and the letterpress work that comes from it - while still being under the umbrella of ilovenataliekay. I created a twitter account for it but that is also hard to maintain a bit. We shall see where that lands, but for the time being, I have a nice little logo to use on my trailer when it is done, as well as on some future prints that come out of it!I struggled with what to do for this. I use my signature for all my branding so I knew I wanted some handwritten element to it. I looked around at what a lot of other people are doing with fancy calligraphy, but that didn't represent me in the right way. I get compliments often on my own handwritting and decided instead of trying to 'copy' the popular style that was everywhere else, I would use what is MINE anyway.First I drew out a few versions on paper. I kept writing and rewriting parts of words until I had a bunch to work with. Here is a shot from one of those pages:
After I sorted the ones I liked out, I began tracing out the letters in illustrator. I always write with the same brand of pen, so I made sure to use one I was comfortable with. I start tracing with single simple lines and increase the point of line to match the width of the pen I had used. Then I outline the line stroke and mess with each letter to get it to the ideal shape. I also change the kerning of the letters to fit within each other. So many little vector paths!
Once I finished that I threw it in with the circle that I had thought about using and got the final result.
I have my signature locked up in the same fashion now to use on some coordinating pieces. But most often my true ilovenataliekay logo will stick with my plain signature. I also have some plans in the future to sell some digital downloads and want to lock up a logo so it all feels cohesive.