Developing a Personal Logo

Have you branded yourself lately? 

Actor, writer, artist, progressive, Batman lover.

It’s 2019 and if you’re not selling yourself, you’re not on the market. That means no work, no exposure, and no love. Hell, I saw a logo on Tinder the other week that advertised the perfect female suitor. So don’t avoid it. Indulge in it. Make a logo and have fun doing it. Here’s a few thoughts on how I came to find mine.

Branding is the new smoking. None of us really want to do it, but when we get it just right it feels sooo cool, doesn’t it? 

I was an actor once. I’ve been writing incessantly for years. Sometimes I’m an artist, but the only work that’s ever gotten me a steady paycheck is video production. I learned to shoot. I learned to edit. I spent a lot of time working for others who taught me the importance of patience and cooperative creativity. I learned plenty of bad lessons as well, but what it ultimately taught me was that you have to be able to fire on all cylinders at all times. This business is infinitely evolving. For every job I take I learn at least four new talents. I have to; because one day you’re going to be given the chance to do it all and if you fail, there’s someone else right behind you ready to step up.

My 12 years in the film industry have all bottled down to one position - Content Producer. The Do-It-Yourself-as-Quick-and-as-Cheap-as-Possible Position that everyone seems to be hiring for these days.  

To be honest, I saw the word Preditor on a job post recently (Producer/Editor) and if I didn’t think it would get me on a neighborhood watch list, I’d mark myself as a Preditor too. 

When I began expanding my freelance capabilities it wasn’t enough that I had a stellar reel, or a plethora of good references—none of those mattered. I needed a logo. The issue had been plaguing me for years because the closest thing I had to a logo was my ugly mug—a free headshot taken on a day I was too hungover to smile. Sure, it’s funny, but nobody wants to hire that guy. Only Joe Rogan can get away with a logo of himself making a face only murder victims should see.

No, I needed real logo. One that could communicate immediately and communicate well. It’s not like I can just draw a few lines inside of a circle and call it Pepsi. Those types of logos are already established. You could see the Pepsi logo on an IV bag and you’d have to stop and question why the hell these doctors are pumping you full of cola.

I wanted something elemental. A logo that could strike fear into the hearts of choosing beggars everywhere. A symbol, something incorruptible...

BEHOLD - MY INITIALS

Yeah, I know, initials are pretty basic, but what else was I going to do? I’m too spread out as an artist. If I want to do storyboard work I can’t go running around with a director’s chair logo.

I started simple. I searched for fonts. 

Adobe Creative Cloud is an insane investment, but if you know how to abuse it, it’s totally worth it. They have thousands of fonts to choose from. 

I started with BC Alphapipe. It was round and wide and reminded me of Batman the Animated Series—serious, but friendly. Then I added an R because I realized something that I’ll probably regret for the rest of my life…. My email address has my middle initial in it. DannyRBellini@gmail.com. 

Do you know how many important emails I’ve missed because of this simple letter placement? Neither do I. So I have to attack this problem at the source. My logo will have all my initials in it - Danny Ray Bellini.  Just to be safe. I also might start using my full name in all instances. Comments on that are welcome. Danny Ray Bellini. Just sounds like it carries more weight, don’t you think?

I changed the font because I found another one that I thought was sleek and looked even more like Batman The Animated Series (nerd alert). It’s called Address Sans Pro.

I started playing with Shapes & Strokes and Stroking Shapes.

D’s and B’s and R’s have very similar paths and curves to them so there were plenty of options to go with. I really liked that if I stacked them atop each other they could all share one line between them. This would probably be a perfect logo for some apartment complex in Williamsburg. I would know, I used to work in Real Estate after all.

It wasn’t until I added a bit of shrinkage to the D that I saw it…

If aligned just right, this could… yeah… this could look like a camera! 

Perfect. I’ve been producing video content for years now, professionally and privately, it’s the only work I’ve found that fully utilizes everything I’ve learned over the last 12 years, it consistently pays and it’s dominating the world of branding — any and all companies need video.

So yeah, DRB with a camera… kinda.  

Time to jazz it up.

Let’s add a lens to enforce the image.

Gut the 3D element. It’s too distracting.

Darken the lens. It’s also too distracting. 

Lose the fill on the back letters and turn them into simple strokes. Again, too distracting.

Dash the strokes. Why? They’re too fucking distracting.

Now make it pop. Add a bright blue border. 

View fullsize

And done! 

My brand new logo. 

I’m really happy about this. Especially considering where I started with those big cartoony things. 

The biggest lesson I took from this was to keep experimenting. That’s why I developed the transition GIF so that people could get a real sense of the journey I had gone through. I had hundreds of different variations. It took me weeks, maybe months, to finally get the image I wanted; and nothing that I started with ever made it to the final round.

Sometimes the creative process can be excelled by a deadline, but often it can become stifled. For most projects in my life, a deadline is necessary (I enjoy the squeezing vice grip of surmounting pressure); but when it comes to personal projects, patience is my most important asset. I have to revisit sketches from different points of view and on different platforms. You finish a design, you have to then see how it looks on your phone, or your laptop. You have to make sure it looks good from all angles and in as many colors as possible. What if you were bleeding out on the floor from a bullet wound that came hurling in behind you from a mugging; and you didn’t know where you were because you just dashed into an open door and there you are in shock, sweat in your eyes, heart pounding… would you recognize this logo?

Don’t rush your designs, and don’t be sentimental. Rough drafts are there for a reason. Screw it up however many times you need to before showing the world how intuitively creative you always were.