Logo Design Process for Just Creative Design’s Award Winning Logo
Written by Jacob Cass on Thursday, April 24, 2008 – 7:29 pm -
In this article I will talk about how I came to the name for my freelancing business ‘Just Creative Design’ and also the logo design process that I used to design the award winning logo that you see above.
The process I used was somewhat disjointed and a very long one at that… mainly because I was designing for myself and I had no idea what ‘brand’ I was after but this is it. Enjoy.
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What will be my business name?
Believe it or not but this was one of the hardest parts of the process. Before I had JCD I was freelancing under the name of ‘JackCass Productions’ - this was when I was 15. This was a clever pun of my name Jacob and Cass. I get called ‘Jack’ and ‘Jake’ quite a bit for my nickname instead of Jacob and when you combine the nickname Jack and my last name Cass… well you get JackCass or jackass if you will.
I actually got about very mixed feelings about this name JackCass Productions. About 70% of people loved it, and were actually quite envious of the name and then about 30% of people would say why would you want to be called that in a professional business? There were pros and cons for both however in the end I chose not to continue using this name for the long term and I think I made the right choice… But in saying that I still have the domain jackcass.com which I use for a personal side blog - that never gets updated.
Ok, so now I had the problem of choosing whether to brand myself as my name ‘Jacob Cass’ or another name. Obviously I went with the latter however I still bought my domain name jacobcass.com. But now what to choose for my business name? I decided I wanted something unique, I wanted the word design in the title but I also wanted it to include my initials in the name - ego I know.
I had a million ideas, as you do… Jucy, Jaycii, JayZee, JayCee, Jaci, Jaysee, JayCee, JaySee, JaiSee, Juju, Juca, Joco, Jluc, Jaco, JC, JLBC and I won’t bore you with the hundred more that I had.
Sketches
I couldn’t come down to a name I liked so I just played around with my initials to make a logo and you can see the sketches below of trying to get J and C to work together. There were six A3 pages so I had to take a photo of it… it is 2mb if you want to look at it full size. And I am no Picasso so shhh.
From these sketches I had the idea of trying to make the initials JCD into a pencil and after a bit of experimenting I got it to work. Need to know how to be creative?
Throughout the whole process I was up in air about the name of the business so I played with the names JackCass, Jacob Cass and Just Creative Design.
Illustrator
After getting the initial idea I had some fun playing around in Illustrator with different typefaces, sizes, porportions etc which you can see in the picture to see what typefaces worked, what line widths and combinations worked best together and just some other design ideas.
More play with the pencil idea…
The Final Two Concepts
I then finally came down to two styles, one which was the led pencil style and one which is below.
At this time I received feedback from peers and from forums and many people told me that there was so many logos that incorporated the Fibonnaci Squirl. After a little research I found this was true and this meant that my logo would not be unique. So I went with the led pencil idea that I thought was working quite well so I continued with that. It was here that I tried to get the best size for the pencil to show off the JCD initials as well as making sure it looked like a pencil.
Font Change
I ended up choosing the third size down from the top however something was not quite sitting with me and I narrowed it down to the font. I changed it to the font I used in the other example which was the free font Delicious and that solved all my problems - I was happy with the JCD initial, pencil and the font. It was a great black and white logo.
Colour
This was where I played a lot with colour however I narrowed it down to the blue or the pink that I originally had in mind and then I chose out of these four colour combinations. I felt pink had more energy and was not so corporate and this was the decision I made. Pink black and white were my colours and my brand.
Award Winning Final Logo
Above you can see the finished logo and I couldn’t be happier with the feedback I have received from everyone on this logo. At least once a week I get someone complimenting it which gives me a warm giddy feeling inside. Oh and the fact that it incorporates my initials into it 
In fact I entered this logo into the Logo Design Love Awards and it won the readers appreciation award (as voted by you so thank you!) and then on top of that we came 15th out of 100+ blogs in the overall Blog Logo Design Competition.
Adrian Hanft , co-founder of Be A Design Group had this to say about my logo when it won the award.
So often logos fall into cliché. This is usually a danger to avoid, but if you can put a new spin on an overused idea then you actually benefit from people’s awareness of the idea. You can turn a negative reaction into a positive one, and that has impact. The idea of using a pencil and sketching to represent creativity could be cliché, but this logo overcomes it. The JCD are just imperceptible enough to let the viewer feel rewarded for finding them. Same with the pencil. The typography is understated and it matches the humble positioning of “just creative.” They aren’t trying to be too clever, too flashy, or too self-important. They’re just creative.
Final Logo with Evil Comics Sans MS
And just for kicks, what if my logo used Comic Sans? Evil, Evil, Evil.
Well there we have it boys and girls, the logo design process I used to create the logo in my blog header. I hope you enjoyed it. Comments are always appreciated.
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Hi Jacob,
Nice information about your hard and long thought journey.
Eager to ask, While selecting one of your ideas to proceed further, Have you took the logo design rules as the criteria Or just gone by the heart??
Nice write up, great thought process.
Thanks for showing your process. Watching how people go about their design process is always very helpful to me since I am very much of a beginner.
It’s also fun to watch how the creative juices flow for different people.
Jeremy Daviss last blog post..A Wiii Fit Story: Chapter 1 - Keyword Analysis and Beginning SEO
when I visited your site for the first time the things which struck me were the Logo and the pink Color.
Now that you have explained the awesome Logo design process, I want to know about the color.
You have mentioned, “I felt pink had more energy and was not so corporate and this was the decision I made. Pink black and white were my colours and my brand.”
Is it that simple. I want to know. I have real difficulty in choosing the correct theme for my site.
Sid
Hi Chaitanya,
I just went by heart but I always look at it after for revision to see what I can improve. In some instances rules can be broken as well.
Kevin and Jeremy
Glad you liked it. Hope you guys comment more often.
Sid,
Well good to hear that. It is a pretty unusual colour scheme that you don’t see many places. Regarding the colour, I have always liked the colour scheme pink black and white however I found that black wasn’t really the brand I was after.
I wanted something clean to reflect the statement ‘Just Creative’. I found that pink provided energy and showed creativity unlike blue which was a very safe overly used corporate colour.
You should really look up colour methodology and their meanings to guide you a long. I have written also written a post on the best colour tools on the net: http://justcreativedesign.com/.....es-online/
Thanks!
Love to see “behind the scenes” of design! And sketches are always interesting to see, even from the non-Picassos; I’m horrible at it too, usually I’m the only one that can understand them!
You’ve really expanded your portfolio since last I looked! Do you get a lot of freelance requests coming through your blog?
LaurenMarie - Creative Curios last blog post..The World of Movie Props, Letterpress and Design
LOL jackcass thats funny.
You followed the Rand way, a simple/clean logo People remember cleaner logos better.
modemloopers last blog post..How To Deal With A Clients Horrible Design Suggestions
Hi Lauren,
Yeah it is great to see how other designers work and this time I actually put my sketches up.
Yeah I updated my portfolio yesterday as I realised I hadn’t done it since I started the blog back in November.
I get a lot of requests but mainly for people wanting cheap designs so not that many. Maybe a few good clients every few weeks. I get more from local clients and word of mouth and a bit from Google.
Ryan,
Yeah well I was trying to design a clean logo all along, the JackCass site was from when I loved grunge design back when I was 15 (it was all the rage back them and I suppose still is now in a less conformist way.)
oh I love grunge design and see a few blogs with it still.
modemloopers last blog post..How To Deal With A Clients Horrible Design Suggestions
Nice read, and congratulations on the win. Good to hear the story behind it, especially as it was a design for yourself. They’re always the hardest projects to complete.
Great outcome though, so you must be pleased, especially with the award. & Considering some of the judges that’s got to be a great feeling.
Regards, Liam.
hehe, it’s interesting how Lauren and I not only sometimes think the same but act the same too. Before reading this post, I clicked to check your portfolio and was surprised to see it grew so big.
Btw, you should chose Comic Sans as your default corporate font
j/k
you know, I love “behind the scenes” posts, and this one was no exception - fascinating read. Thank you.
inspirationbits last blog post..PROs And CONs Of Going Solo
Jacob,
Great write-up. You are brave to show off those earlier ideas. I don’t think I would want to show off the earliest rejects of a project!
From Adrian Hanft, I love this part best: “They aren’t trying to be too clever, too flashy, or too self-important. They’re just creative.” I think that’s why you wisely rejected a lot of those earlier ones. They were trying to hard, too flashy, or too self-important.
The earliest name for my business in the very long ago was “ojo” [”eye” in Spanish]. It looks interesting on a page, has a meaning that works well with what Experience Designers do, and has a lovely sound if you speak Spanish.
That’s where I first realized I was in trouble: not everyone does, and oh-joe is not a nice sound at all. Then the meaning’s lost, too…. Letting it go took a long time, and then I was into a zillion other ideas until I settled on VisionPoints. So I can totally appreciate the process you went through.
The thing I discovered back then is that it is a LOT harder to do naming and identity creation for yourself than it is for anyone else. As hard as you try to step outside yourself, objectivity is impossible on your own projects.
BTW, I always loved the JCD in Just Creative Design. Smooth.
Regards,
Kelly
Kellys last blog post..Tip of the Week: The Simplest Way to Avoid Naming Disasters
Good call leaving “JackCass” behind. I like the finished logo, it seems fitting for the image you are trying to create for yourself. Very unique and memorable.
Thanks for sharing your process.
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Liam,
I agree, completing projects for yourself are the worst! I know that many design studios actually outsource their own work. And yes it was a great feeling winning the award
Vivien,
Glad you liked it. Have you decided if you are going solo yet?
Kelly,
I haven’t really shown much of my sketches before on here however people were asking so I gave this time. Haha yeah Adrian’s conclusion is great, and it is true, it was the image I was after - not that I knew at the time.
Yes I would have said Oh-Joe as well but it has got good meaning behind it. So how did you come down Vision Points?
Hear from you soon.
Josh,
Glad to hear that it is unique and memorable and good to see another new face commentating on JCD, hope to see you comment more often..
Congrats on the award, Jacob! I’m honored to have been in the running with you. My site has just been up since the beginning of this year, so I’ve got a long road ahead of me. But thanks for sharing your blog … I’ve enjoyed reading so far and will be sure to visit often.
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Hey Rob, you have a great and original logo as well, I like! Good luck with your site too!