Design Process: David McClain Photography Logo

Logo design for a cool photographer based out of Cincinatti. This project took longer than normal, as both David and I wanted this logo to be just right. And since he is an old friend, I told him we’d make as many revisions as necessary to make it perfect.

Read below to follow along the process David and I took to develop this logo.

The first step was to submit a few varied concepts.

My favorite came to be known between us as the “camera” logo. It had a really clean and fun style… really seemed to capture the essence of David’s photography business, which is fresh and fun but also totally professional from top to bottom.

David had a very positive reaction to this “camera” image, but had a few concerns.  He was afraid the wide dimensions wouldn’t be very flexible; he wasn’t sure about the typeface, and he was afraid the camera itself might look too much like a point-and-shoot.

I thought he was referring to the “flash” and tried to come up with a few other options that might resemble a mounted flash. I  included some other font options as well as a more flexible placement for his business name in the original design. I also submitted a few other colors that I thought would represent his personality well… since it is really the foundation to his photo session experience.

Of course, it wasn’t the “flash” that David wanted to see changed, but more the shape of the camera “body” and “lens.” I tried making some slight adjustments, as well as some alternative double lens reflex designs that ended up looking like pineapples…

David wanted to see just a few more options with a slightly more square shape of the camera body…

Finally… the very original logo really grew on David over the course of working on this project, but he still was unhappy with the font I was usin.

I was hoping the font would grow on him too (you can’t really go wrong with Helvetica), but I submitted a few other options, including his recommended font “Danube,” which I wasn’t sure was the right choice…

In the end, David was really anxious to start using his logo and he picked out this Danube font that he really liked. I was excited for him too and passed on the “finished” product.

Once David had his new logo in hand, he did some experimenting of his own (it is his logo, after all) and ended up using the Bellarose font, which is pretty classy.

The clean, fun look really represents David’s business well and I think this logo will set him apart from the competition.

He’s pretty dang good too… I insist you call him the next time you need a photographer.