Photography Logo

Paul Murray

Paul Murray

Ultimate Member
This weekend I worked up a design for a mate who primarily takes BMX photography.

MBFinalAlmost.png


He's happy with the design, I'm feeling like it's not quite there yet, and I'm struggling to find a typeface that suits the concept.

As mentioned he focuses primarily on BMX photography but occasionally gets commissioned to take wedding pictures, portraits, special occasions, etc, and wanted something that was simple but still personal to him (hence the gear) but doesn't immediately say 'BMX'.

I think I need a typeface that is quite informal but also shows professionalism, but I don't know, I've been looking at this for a couple of days and am getting tunnel vision.

Any suggestions?
 
I like the concept and think you've done the gear very well and I also like the main text, the only bit that I'm not completely sure about is the 'photography' part. There's something that I can't put my finger on - whether it is because it is centred, or that there's no capital, or the font... not completely sure but aside from that I like the rest.
 
Thanks. I too feel it's the bolted-on 'photography' part that's bugging me. Ideally I'd like to remove that but I'm worried that the photography part won't be immediately obvious. Perhaps I could leave just the mark and the name and then include 'photography' or a tagline on other stuff like business cards?

Argghhh, I really dread identity design! :p
 
Paul Murray said:
Thanks. I too feel it's the bolted-on 'photography' part that's bugging me. Ideally I'd like to remove that but I'm worried that the photography part won't be immediately obvious. Perhaps I could leave just the mark and the name and then include 'photography' or a tagline on other stuff like business cards?

Argghhh, I really dread identity design! :p
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Yeah I wouldn't say the photography part is obvious really in anything apart from the word!

Your idea though would make it obvious in the context of where the logo is used I guess, I just like the icon in the way it represents an aspect of his personality and, although you could make it out to be related to a camera lens/shutter type thing, I don't think that's really recognisable without some other inference.
 
I'd look at what he specialises in and work from there. I was recruited to design a logo for a female photographer and she specialised in architecture so I worked that in with an actual camera. She got it straight away and loved it. I'll try and dig it out so you can see what I mean.

Good job so far though!
 
Perhaps the black cog around the 'gear/aperture' icon could be put into a grey/silver/foil (depending upon application) to knock it back slightly to help bring the 'aperture' forwards.
The silver/grey as well as being metallic also feels a little more 'wedding'-y/special occasion.

I have a think about titles/descriptors in logos and I know this one is borderline.
Perhaps it needs to be slightly bolder to sandwich the name between the cog and 'photography'?

My thoughts anyway! :)

Paul
 
The shutter/cog device is great and, although I don't have any suggestions for a replacement font, the one you have at the moment is horrible (the lowercase T and M in particular look awful to my eyes): it's also a bit thin and weedy beneath such a bold image.

I don't know what limitations you're working to but I think I'd go for 'Martin Balman Photography' as a full trading name rather than adding it as a descriptive term underneath.
 
just one additional thought: I'd like to see a version with a curvy camera shutter (you know the sort of thing) as, for some reason, I everso slightly think 'recycling' with it as it is (although on one level that is quite a nice-if-a-bit-obscure visual pun).
 
Dave L said:
The shutter/cog device is great and, although I don't have any suggestions for a replacement font, the one you have at the moment is horrible (the lowercase T and M in particular look awful to my eyes): it's also a bit thin and weedy beneath such a bold image.
Click to expand...

I agree, now that I've been away from it for a couple of days, I'm kicking myself over the typography.

I don't know what limitations you're working to but I think I'd go for 'Martin Balman Photography' as a full trading name rather than adding it as a descriptive term underneath.
Click to expand...

I think that's going to be the case. Initially I was worried about the footprint being too large, but I'm thinking aligning the logo with the type horizontally could be the key.

Thanks everyone for the input. Though I haven't replied I've definitely taken it into account.
 
Dave L said:
just one additional thought: I'd like to see a version with a curvy camera shutter (you know the sort of thing) as, for some reason, I everso slightly think 'recycling' with it as it is (although on one level that is quite a nice-if-a-bit-obscure visual pun).
Click to expand...

It definitely looks better with a curvy shutter... Good call.

MBFinalAlmost2.png
 
This might me being really pedantic but the cog needs more of a 'U' shape between the point as opposed to the 'V' shape you have. It seems slightly odd to me but other than that a great idea!
Shimano-Dura-Ace-13t-Track-Cog__92650_zoom.jpg



I agree with dave about the font that 'M' looks particularly bad to me.
 
Yeah; it's not strictly an accurate cog but it's coggy enough to suggest a cog when placed in the right context; however, it's also 'vague' (not the right word) enough to NOT look like a cog in situations where the concept of gears is not helpful. I'd stick with it as is, I think.
 
Thanks for the feedback Tom and Dave.

I've adjusted the teeth of the cog so that they look a little capped, and also adjusted the interior size slightly to give a heavier look to the cog. Personally I think cog now looks better and much more like a bike cog, though it really depends on how you look since they come in a variety of different shapes.

I'm playing around with the concept of having his company name 'stamped' onto the cog like manufacturers do. Initially I just expected the text to be too small to read when printed, but surprisingly it's borderline: legible, but some characters are not as legible as I'd like, though I'm hoping this can be rectified with a strong, simple typeface (I've resorted to Arial Rounded Bold for the time being, which doesn't print too badly).

Thoughts? I'm worried that the type gets in the way and ruins the shape slightly but I'd like to avoid having the name following the shape as I'd originally tried.

MBArialRounded.png
 
I think the idea looks good having the name in the cog but I would be fearful that if ever the logo needed to be any smaller than it is there it would become illegible.

Having the writing at the side sounds good though so I look forward to seeing it complete!
 
Still working on this (I know, I started the thread some time back :icon_tongue_smilie: )

I've remade the and now I think it looks better, and I'm pretty happy with the typeface for his name (unsure about all lower case though). Now, I'm still having trouble tying the 'photography' in.

The ascenders on the h's are breaking up the space but I don't want to take the easy (and trendy) way out by using uppercase characters and wide tracking.

It doesn't actually look too bad when it's printed out, but it's still rather annoying.

MBFinalAlmost.png
 
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