I decided to start to brand myself as THRICE Design last year. In the end I created a portfolio book, business card, resume, letterhead, custom iPad case, and a website http://www.THRICEdesign.com
I know that some might be confused when they hear that I spent quite awhile trying to think of a logo for myself, they may be unimpressed with the final logo, they may think they could have designed something so simple. For those who feel that way, this note is for you.
To begin this creation I had to create an original name. I didn't want to simply be 'Dan Dismounts Design'. While that does have superb alliteration, it's originality was more bland than the taste of water. So I thought on it for awhile and decided on the name Thrice Design, based upon my last name 'Dismounts-Thrice' (Yes that is my legal last name, I have two last names, but that is a story for another time). I wanted something that was unique, and as I googled 'Thrice Design' there were no graphic designers/companies with that name so that was my first success. I finally had a name for my designs.
After the name I needed a logo, something that I could use to signify that a design was in fact, my design. I had worked on this for quite awhile trying to create something that would be simple, recognizable, and easily worked in both color as well as black and white. I worked on this for such a long time that I became frustrated and even considered just having my logo be a scribble. I had tried so many typefaces and graphic elements, but everytime I kept working on it to the point that I felt like I was working on a logo for someone else and the design had lost what I wanted it to be. When I sat back and thought to myself about what I wanted for my own logo, it proved more difficult that I had imagined. For once in my life I didn't have to design this to meet the standards of someone else, only me, and that proved to be a challenge. So, I sat down and made a list of the things that I wanted this logo to be. The list ended up "Simple, Clean, Blue, identifiable, and light."
I played with some interesting concepts such as DD, D squared, Thrice with the last E replaced with a 3, lots of intersting ideas, but none of the designs ever met the standard that I thought they should achieve. Then one night I had my "ah ha" moment. The final design is actually created using a hybrid of four fonts, so well put together that most people wouldn't even realize that there were anymore than two. Why did I do this? In the original fonts there were some letters that I didn't like the look of, so I simply replaced them with letters that I found more appealing. One of these examples is the 'S' in design. In the original font it was not as rounded and felt out of place, hence, I found a different font with a better 'S', changed the thickness to match, and voilá.
Finally I came back to the idea that was the 3 as the last E. In previous versions I thought that it was an interesting idea but it always came across at cheesy, or just too easy of a solution to the problem. Then I just stopped designing one night and thought to myself, "Thrice...Three..." it seemed so easy and somehow I had completely overlooked it. I tried the new found idea and discovered that by removing the ascending bar from the E it would remain a simple 3 lines, easily reading as the 'E' so the word was readable, while representing the word 'Thrice' in itself, and also creatively solving the 3=E problem, because it can be whichever you want to interpret it to be.
In the end this final design accomplished all the goals that I had set out for it, and I am very proud of the result.
Some will inadvertantly say "I could do that" and truthfully they could easily replicate it. But, what they couldn't do is come to the same result if presented with the same problem. That's what graphic design is about in the end, not coming up with an ornate final result, but solving the problem in a creative and unique way.
I'm now proud to say that I am Thrice Design.
