It's been awhile since I have been using my previous logo of 'MK', sitting in the hexagon. I decided that it was time I'd give it a facelift and at the same time, give myself a new, refreshing identity, a personal project that I've been working on for 2 months.

The new concept surrounds around me, skewed more towards a graphic designer than a sports person, which was what the previous identity was based on. I am a person who loves bold/block letters and am a huge fan of stripes and lines and at most times, I try to be a positive person. I tried to incorporate, as much as possible, the 2 elements while coming out with as many variations as possible in the sketches and in Illustrator. It's pretty obvious which one I preferred in my sketches but I still tried to go further to see how it can be further developed.

 

This time I dropped my sir-name and instead focus more on just my name, represented by the letter 'M' alone.
 

 

I selected about 3-4 from my sketches and started working on them in Illustrator, already having in mind what is the color combination that I want to have.

At this point, it is obvious which one was the one that I picked to work on and develop further. I started off with the plain one (above, 3rd from the back) and then attempted on developing it through adding a border, adding the two triangles in it to make the "M" more apparent, adding lines around it and just leaving a line.

 

But I felt that there could be more potential for this. Besides, the lines were too thin and if scaled down, it would be too fine for the naked eye to see. So I returned to the drawing board and tried to draw out as many possibilities for this letter M, sticking to the same chosen logo and later trying again, drawing out the different styles that the letter "M" can be in.

I studied my sketches (in round 2, above) and see that I was able to draw out an 'M' in this manner neatly with straight lines on the left photo above. I scanned it, traced it in Illustrator and scaled it up, only for it to look like the below. I thought what I drew was nice but perhaps the logo only looked "good" when it is smaller, not when scaled up. Besides, I didn't like that the pointed end was too long.

 

 

I dropped the above one and translated a chosen few of my round #2 sketches in Illustrator, adding lines and shape elements to it, to see how it would look. This time, I gave the lines of the 'M' a bolder look by using points and drawing an outer border for it, keeping the 2 triangles in there.

Looking at how the shapes did not really look or appear well (to me) in the above, I decided to scrap the shapes or elements around it.

 

Instead, I decided to keep it really minimal and simple and so I kept the 2 lines I drew on the 'M' and also gave it abit of depth by adding a duplicate (in the color blue) below it. I also changed the tone of the blue.