Its natural that all good brand designers will have evolved their techniques over time, and will no doubt continue to evolve them... but where did it all begin?
I've asked a number of prominent online brand designers to send me their first paid logo and a short description of the project. I made it the first paid logo because I thought it would be a good defining point in our careers.
Note: I was actually expecting the quality of these to be much lower than they were. As you can see, my first logo at the end isnt even in the same ballpark as the rest of these marks.
A special thanks to those that responded to my request for inclusions.
Boat Leash by Sean Farrell / Penflare
This was for a boat leash (gps tracking) company.
Cashin Printing Services by Sean O'Grady / Fogra
It was for a local printing company that I worked with to gain some experience after I had left college waaay back in 1994. I can't remember how much I got paid but I was so happy to have created a real logo for a real company. It was still in use until last year when they updated it. You always remember your first no matter what ;)
Crunch Catering by Lawrence Anderson
This was for a friend's friend's company. got $50. It was also the first one to get into the LP gallery.
I would definitely change the typography if I could go back to it.
See Evil by Gareth Hardy / Down With Design
I did this intially as a University project. About a year later some snowboarders/skateboarders asked me if they could use it and said that they were willing to pay.
Being young and naive I snatched the £50 note of their hands thinking I was a millionaire :) It got printed on t-shirts and stickers but unfortunately is no longer in use. I still love it though, and wouldn't change it for the world :)
Southwest Realty by Jared Lunde
A family member knew a guy who wanted to help a poor college student make some money. As you can see it uses the beautiful Helvetica type face, as I had no others and was in no way a typographer. It was designed in Macromedia Fireworks of all places. I wish I could redo it because I love the concept (4 corners and all) :)
ohive by Josiah Jost / Siah Design
It was for a domain name selling site. I did over 100 logos for them, and that was the first one I did for them - it was the one that got me the job. The client has the logo for sale here.
Zogozizd Komerc by Bojan Stefanovic / Logoholik
Zogozizd - Logo for family run print house located in Belgrade, Serbia (one of my first paying clients for everything graphic design/prepress related, name derived from family members first names: ZOran, GOran, ZIvka and ZDravko... yeah i know :)...)
Year: 1994
Software used: CorelDRAW! 5
Price: 200 DEM (those are Deutsche marks :)
EUMA by Jeff Fisher / LogoMotives
While I did a few logo-like designs in junior high and high school, the identity design for the Eugene University Music Association was my first professional logo commission. I was a design and journalism student at the University of Oregon at the time. Created in 1978 or 1979, the design was produced using a traditional drafting compass, straight edge, ruling pen, paint brush and India ink. The design does have the "clunkiness," and geometric elements, of many images created in the 1970's and early 1980's.
Powerlite Industries by Leighton Hubbell
In case you didn't know, I got started in the pre-computer days. I don't have the first paid logo, but this dates back to my first full-time design job which was working in-house for a bicycle manufacturer. It's the original inked artwork for Powerlite bicycles' redesigned logo back in 1988.
This is an interim piece of artwork as the original version was inked on board in two pieces much larger than this and shrunk down. I can't seem to locate it at the moment, but I still have it. The logo redesign came after the acquisition of Powerlite by GT Bicycles and an evolutionary version of this design is still used today. When computers came along, it had to be redrawn in Illustrator '88. Goin' old school!
Sixpack Singles by Robert McKenna / Clashmore
I'm not exactly sure which logo was my first paying project, but this one was around that time. It was for a "fitness dating" website.
My Best Mate by Nathan Sarlow / CobaltCow
This was for a business my old neighbour was involved in. It was a pet supplies network. Suppliers pay to be part of the program, members pay to get the rewards and the owners sit in the middle and make all the money. I designed the logo and built the website. The site was live for 12 months (with the dummy text). With no members (suppliers or buyers), the hosting was not renewed and it drifted into obscurity until last month when I was able to dig it up with the help from archive.org.
From memory I was paid $400 for the logo & website. It was drawn with pencil, scanned and colored in Paint Shop Pro.
Year: approx 1994
8 comments:
Lol what a fun post. Thanks for the inclusion, it was awesome to see what other virgin logos were.
Ha ha, nice post. Fun to see what everyone's first was :-)
LOL, really enjoyed this post. Some of them are actually quite nice. :D Thanks for compiling, Nathan!
Great post, always fun to look back and see how you've evolved and grown as a designer...sometimes it makes me cringe to remember what I thought was a solid brand - ouch!
The first project I had was a poster/collage for a boxer, how odd.
Thanks again for a fun post.
@JeremyTuber
beingastarvingartistsucks.com
Great idea. Thanks for including me, as it was very cool to see how everyone's work started out. Nice post.
Very cool post...while the designs weren't what you would call bad, it's VERY evident that the designers have come a looong way :)
Oh man, I'm glad I didn't participate in this... my first paid gig was horrible- it was from early high school (I think 9th-10th grade). It was for an Asset Management Firm and was very 'blah'. Just very, very forgettable- I'll have to see if I can find it here somewhere...
Great post, Nathan.
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