The Makings Of A Logo

When you're a new business, you don't have much money so you look for creative ways to get what you need for low cost or free. I am blessed with a very talented (and patient!) friend who knows how to do graphic design and has the software to do it. She designed my first logo and when I realized that it was no longer accurately representing my brand and style, I went back to her and asked if we could maybe do a redesign. She agreed and off we went! That was about a year ago :)

I knew that my style of photography was going towards light and airy. I also knew the "look" I was going for. Clean, classic. elegant. Well, there is a LOT of leeway even with those things figured out. I really thought I wanted some kind of lettered or cursive script for my name and some sort of design element. I sent my friend some color ideas and this is a sampling of what she sent back.

There were definitely things I liked about these iterations, but I also knew they weren't quite right. I sent her back notes on what I thought worked and what didn't, along with some designs I'd played with in Canva.

I can't recall the exact order. Maybe I sent her those and then she sent me what you saw up the page. I guess the order doesn't really matter in the long run. As you can see, I thought "light and airy" equaled very neutral colors. I like neutrals but I also like color so the tans and grays and yellows were just a little boring to me. I also wasn't finding a lettered font that was what I was envisioning. I sent my friend some new thoughts and we started moving in this direction.

You're probably wondering what was taking so long. Life. She had work and school and I kept learning new things and changing my mind about things (Enneagram 9s can have trouble being decisive and that showed itself in this process). We could go MONTHS between emails of ideas and examples.

I finally started exploring Canva more and with what I learned about logos from Katelyn James' Business Collection, I thought I finally had a good idea of what I wanted. So I made some mockups in Canva and sent them to my friend.

In January, we finally sat down together (this was the first time we had been in the same place when working on the logo) and fine-tuned what I had come up with. It took recalibrating my laptop screen (I hadn't realized how blue it was!) but we were able to get the color in a good place and FINALLY, Sarah Jane Photography had a new logo!!!

2018-2019

2020-???

Quite a difference, no? I really like my first logo. It represents a season and it served me well for that season. I'm very excited for what this new logo represents.

I could not have done this without my friend and Canva! I couldn't blog without Canva :) As much as I wished in the moment that we could have gotten this done faster, I'm extremely grateful it didn't go faster because I would have had one of the earlier iterations and it wouldn't have been quite right.

I hope you enjoyed this "behind the scenes" look at what goes into DIY-ing your own logo! I'd love to hear your thoughts. Which of the in-between versions is your favorite?