Kate Johnson Studio

Graphic Design, Illustrator, Photoshop, Web Publishing / By

How can I have my portfolio without including myself? Branding for yourself is tough business. How DO I want people to see me? I love doing detailed work…but what does that mean exactly? I don’t dislike any aspect of graphic design, really.

So, having myself for a client, I made my logo…which I hated…and then another, and I hated that, too…

This one seemed like a great idea for about 72 hours, when I thought the combined simplicity of the background and the detail of the snowflakes told a good story…then I didn’t like it anymore.
Aw, my first logo…I still like it except it didn’t actually match my aesthetic and that green looks awkward as a mouse color. I might someday decide to make this work as a mousepad.
I still love this one, but I kept wanting to mess with it, so I knew it wasn’t going to be my logo.
NOT a logo, but too pretty not to make. This is the kind of elegant detail that can keep me busy for days.

Finally, the ONE logo to rule them all. MY logo. I love it because it shows simplicity and detail at the same time. It shows my love of both vector art and pixel (raster) art. It looks good in color and in monochrome. If I were working with a client, I would have come to this a lot sooner…and it actually happened while I was distractedly telling my husband I wasn’t happy with any logo for myself despite my ability to help others. I said, “I don’t want my logo to limit the kind of art people ask me to do…I love both Illustrator and Photoshop…” and then my eyes went wide with a twinkle as my logo was born in my head.

My logo has an interrupted vector circle with pixels escaping. Lovely. And the joy of drawing pixels in a vector program will make me giggle ’til I die.

THIS is my logo.