I recently did a logo design for Meadowlark Media Design. I was introduced to Heidi, the owner, through a mutual friend. I was a little hesitant to take on a freelance project, since I was training for my half marathon, working on items for Fight in a Box, working full-time, and my social life has gone crazy! (Ok, probably just crazy in my eyes. I have plans on school nights! Multiple school nights!) But I’m glad that I did it. It turned out better than I had imagined.

Heidi knew exactly what she wanted, which made it easy to schedule her into my already busy schedule. She sent me samples of what she was looking for and what she liked. She also gave me screen shots of her website, her color swatches, and the font that was being used for the text of the logo. After her initial email and samples, I got to sketching out some ideas.

Then I took those ideas to the computer:

I’ve found that starting out a design in color tends to be really distracting to me. I spend too much time thinking about what color everything should be and less time on the actual design. So while I may start out doing some designs in color, I tend to shift back to black and white and then add color in afterwards. It’s funny, because for this project, the Meadowlark already has really distinct colors, and I didn’t need to make many decisions about what color would go where, but it was easier for me to focus on drawing the shape in black and white and then cutting everything apart to color it afterwards.

After showing Heidi my initial ideas, she was pleased, but wanted more. She asked to see a few of them with tweaks, and then sent me some new variations that were different from anything I’d ever done before. I was a little nervous, since I didn’t know if I could transform them and still make them look like my style. But I was excited to challenge myself and see what I could do.

Honestly, my favorite part about the finished bird is the eye. For the other designs, the eye was just a black dot, but for the final choice, the black dot got lost in all of the geometric shapes, so I had to do something to make it stand out. I like it because it brings the focal point to the bird and gives it a bit of personality.