Mark Brayer Illustration and Design is 10 years old, and the time has come for a change. My work focus and my client base has changed dramatically since started my business, and I wanted a new brand and identity that reflected those changes. So before we talk about the new logo, let’s explore a little history of mark brayer illustration.
When I first started 10 years ago my focus was more comic art-based, and not so much illustration based. So, in choosing a name I tried to think about the things that I like, and then marry that with a catchy name. At the beginning, I knew absolutely nothing about running a business; but at that time, I wanted to draw comics for a living, so I went with something cool and fun — Lightspeed Comics. Here is what that logo looked like:
Some of you may actually remember this logo—you get a gold star if you do!
I loved the curved swoosh shape, and how the red formed the "L" and the negative space inside was the "C". My entire name was represented by that graphic with a very simple image. Because of my love for Star Trek, the font was a no-brainer—for those of you who know your fonts, you'll recognize it as the letter style used for the original series TV show.
It wasn’t long before I realized that you can't make money just trying to get started in comics. I needed to expand my skill set and offer some additional services like logos, marketing pieces and graphic design. Since I wasn't exclusively comics focused, but now more multi-service, I dropped the word "comics" and changed it to "Studios" making it Lightspeed Studios. This change incorporated a little redesign as well by blending the swoosh into the type and going with a slightly bolder font now moved to a "flush-left" configuration. Here is a look at that version:
A few years later, with my business beginning to involve more illustration with children’s books, Star Trek posters and space art, it became necessary to make sure my work was connected to my name. During this same time, I was also considering an upgrade to my website. I went with something straightforward that incorporated my name—Mark Brayer Illustration and Design. Here is that logo:
This logo put my name in the forefront, and with the addition of my handwritten signature and the words "illustration and Design" still kept that simple, minimalist feel in a nice little triangle shape.
This brings us up to the present day with the reveal of my brand new logo and website design. I think what brought me to this point had a lot to do with my work really exploding with a lot of children's book and space themed art, and becoming much more comfortable with being an illustrator. I had noticed that quite a few artists had established an icon or symbol to go with their name, so I began exploring some ideas. This process went on for a couple months with lots of thumbnail sketches and ideas. Here are some of the mind ramblings from my sketchbook:
After narrowing it down to my favorites and getting my wife's final approval (she is a very talented creative artist as well), I begun working on the final logo art in Adobe Illustrator, and this is how it turned out:
I hope you liked our little walk down memory lane, and I hope you like like the new logo!
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