Rebranding Eardog: Evolution of a Logo

I had a wonderful opportunity this winter to work with good friend Kimberly Wang on the development of a new logo for her media production company, Eardog. Eardog's current mascot is Kimberly's ever-faithful canine companion, Theo, and, among other important details, she wanted his likeness incorporated into the new mark. A fan of Kimberly's, a lover of dogs, and an illustrator with a distinct preference for animal subjects - I jumped at the chance to collaborate.

An artist in her own right, Kimberly had a strong vision for the look of the new Eardog brand, and though it took many rounds of refinement and tweaking to nail the finished mark, we are both thrilled with the end result. Eardog's brand new portfolio website and City Dog Country Dog blog were launched last week, incorporating the new logo - now that it's live, I thought it would be fun to put up a process post here, including a number of the steps involved in the evolution of the new logo. I have included a mere fraction of the project here - there were multiple directions explored at the start - but what I've collected here is a coherant stream of where the final idea began, and how it matured.

From the top: 1. Kimberly and I selected a handful of her beautiful photos of Theo, choosing one particularly dynamic image as a reference for the illustrated Theo. Since Kim has a real fondness for the influences of heritage, texture, and eclectic irregularity, I chose to generate original artwork by hand in black ink. 2. Our "mood board" was a bright collection of influences, including antique Chinese textile designs and contemporary logos that caught Kim's eye - a 60-second ballpoint pen sketch on graph paper sparked the melding of motiffs... 3. An inked first attempt at elaborating my sketch was converted to vector art and the emblem shape put through numerous stages of revision (notice the point at which Theo's scowl turns into a dignified, optimistic gaze - expression is everything!). 4. When a black & white design was finally approved, color exploration began... and eventually resolved in the black & periwinkle final at the top of this post. Voila!