Hikers And Thinkers Logo

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I've been pin-diddling around and was asked to help out with a logo design for a budding outdoors company.

Of course I said yes.

I worked for peanuts too.

Just because it was for a *dear* friend. (Simple friends and acquaintances do not qualify for below-the-belt-sucker-punch-fees).

Hikers And Thinkers is a unique service offering guides, tips, and helpful hints for camping and hiking the mountains of Western North Carolina. They have a neato idea for handmade hammocks and I hope they can get them implemented soon.

Follow their blog: Hikers And Thinkers

And for the logo:


This is what I was sent as far as the direction they wanted to take.

The concept

This is my final vision of where I felt it needed to go:

Final Version - Client Approved
©HikersAndThinkers

What do you think?

I've always been told by mentors and instructors to include a design of my own free will when doing anything freelance related so potential employers could see "me". Well. This is me. I always include "me" in my designs. How can I not include "me"?

Thoughts?

Pathfinder Tools : Exclude

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Wrapping your head around the Pathfinder Tools in Illustrator:

Okay. A lot of newbies out there may not know or fully understand all the capabilities of the Pathfinder Tool in Illustrator. So if you are an experienced designer you may find this post dull and boring and blah blah blah. But! Please read on regardless and feel free to elaborate and expand upon this little "how-to" in the comments. 

If you'd like to work along go ahead and open a new project in Illustrator in whatever size you want, this is just an exercise/tutorial. I will be using my logo as examples.

Make sure your Pathfinder Tools window is in full view by bringing it forward: easy way is to navigate to Window option up top, find Pathfinder, click!

This is what your Pathfinder window looks like:

I will go over each one in different posts because I have not had the chance to use all of them and some options I just don't understand.

Today I will be addressing the Exclude tool:

If you would like to play along go ahead and make two shapes: circles, squares, one circle, one square, whatever. Just make two shapes that are different colors so you can more readily see results of our actions.

Here is my original logo (one of many actually, but this is my most recent logo I chose to use) and although I like it, it was too tall and skinny to be implemented in all these web applications.

So I wanted to re-adjust some elements

oh where oh where should that exclamation mark go...

After playing around I wanted the exclamation mark to overlap in some way.

Ta-da! Hmm. Still looks awkward.

I want the parts of the exclamation point that are overlapping to be (hmm how best to put this?) "transparent" so we can see the H passing through the point.


At this point in your own exercise, take one shape and put it on top of the other. Not directly on top, but just so one of the edges are overlapping.

For your simple exercise it doesn't matter which shape is on top when we use the exclude tool, however in my logo I want the exclamation point to be in front of the H so the parts of the exclamation point will be taken away and not the H. I want to see the curves of the H. The shortcut on a Mac is "command+shift+]" or just go to Object - Arrange - Bring to Front (I don't work on a PC, sorry folks)

With both shapes selected go ahead and click on that exclude button!

I only selected my H and exclamation point.

Voila! To better see what happened on your end- make another shape a different color and send it to the back ("command+shift+[" or Object - Arrange - Send to Back) and move it behind your other shapes and you should see that the exclude tool took away the shapes that were overlapping:

Seeeeee????

But wait. In my logo I have a leftover piece hanging around that I don't want:

Lets get rid of it. Easy enough since the points are overlapping making it a separate shape.

I chose the Direct Select tool (the white arrow tool) and selected that little shape. Then I hit DELETE! Easy. Peasey.

Wouldn't want to be ya!

And there my friends we have a finished logo:

©Amanda Haskin. Word!

Questions? Comments? Let's hear it!

Ground Control To Major Tom

Launching A Start-Up. Ignition Fail!



I am only steps closer to being able to stay at home again... it will be so much easier to focus on my own endeavors when I don't have to worry about stress in retail employment.

I was on the phone with my best friend (whom I've had the pleasure in knowing and keeping up with for over 25 years! Dang that's a long time.) and she asked how my freelancing was going.

I laughed.

It is so difficult to do a start-up of any business if you truly cannot devote ALL of your time to launching it and maintaining it. I've been totally neglecting my OHTY re-brand (we are now Yankee Burrow Creations). Been working on a logo and I was so desperate to fix what my *ahem* partner did as far as banners and avatars so I threw something together to get our "look" going:

Deciding color can be a real pain in the ass when you are designing a new brand/company. Orange is used by a lot of big name companies, and quite frankly it would be hard to use a color that NO ONE ELSE is using. Impossible. The color spectrum itself may span as wide as the universe, but I mean when comparing Pantone 3262 and 3272- it's stinking TEAL for pete's sake. Thalo blue and Cerulean blue are both B L U E. So to sit and think of a color that is unique to the corporate world is a complete waste of time. Use a color that fits your brand and expresses it's nature and emotion.

I'm using orange. Preferably a burnt, rust orange that holds sentimental value to myself and my partner since it reminds me of my Nana (my mother's mother. My mother is my business partner if you don't remember). She is the source of our crafty and artsy nature, herself being an artist and her favorite color being orange I thought the color befitting our crafty and artsy handmade shop.

This is just the beginning, I still need to work on a type style that is as close to unique as possible. Just not satisfied with anything I've encountered yet. Time to break out my graph paper...

Been scouring the web for inspiration and I've been sucked into Pinterest.

Oh yes Pinterest you have lassoed me and made me your slave. Not really though. I like getting on board and window shop. I re-pin items that have already been pinned, I very rarely (ok well never) pin original items because of their Terms of Service. But you know. Whatever.

What frustrates me the most about Pinterest is not being able to find the original link of an item pinned. I was on a search to find this because I thought it was awesome and sums up a designer's dilemma when dealing with logo design and clients who just don't understand. When viewing stuff on Pinterest it's super hard reading the small print and since the poster was pinned from this site which is just a scrapbook of cool sh!t, I couldn't find the original link.

After pulling out a magnifying glass I was able to see the url on the poster and I found this guy. He's been at this for a long time and I appreciate his style and keeping his designs classic yet updated. Will definitely be following him for inspired pick-me-ups.

Drop me a line or two if you've found something cool and snazzy that pertains to logos!

I've also been stalking Logo Design Love for inspirations and articles, they rock. If you are having trouble designing a logo that *doesn't* look like someone else's- this is a good article and also encouraging, because everything HAS already been done. We just need to try to do it differently.