Shutter Heart Stories

This is a volunteer organization which provides nature and wildlife photography to people who are stuck indoors due to illness or treatments. Often these photographs are the only way people see the outdoors and the effects this has on the patient and their family are only positive. I am thinking about submitting my own works to this website because I enjoy landscape and wildlife photography and I have many photographs that I could use for this website.

These are some of the options I am thinking of submitting:

Logo Design

In looking for retouching symbols I knew that one of them was the pen tool, I wanted to look for a different version of the pen tool because I wanted to stand out and not follow the same as what others would do.
 I looked at the feather logo because it still a pen and its semiotics is that of high class as well as old and established. I do not think that this logo works however as the pen doesn’t relate to retouching at all so people might not understand why it as been used.

Because I knew I needed to change the logo and find a digital pen I used this symbol for the Wacom tablet and the graphics pen, this is more easily recognisable as a retouching symbol because of how often tablets are used in retouching. 

If I was going to continue into retouching then I would definitely explore this tablet theme more and try to create a 3D looking logo where my name appears to come out of the tablet screen, as I think that would help me stand out more, however as I have been hired by a photography studio I am going to redesign my website with my photography to show off my skills in the work that the studio does so that I can advertise myself as a studio photographer and direct personal clients to working with the studio; I have permission from the manager to use the studio for personal clients when the studio is not busy as this will still generate advertising and repeat clients.

I personally like the logo designs where a camera has been incorporated into the designs; I have experimented with different camera shapes and different fonts to design my logo.

These are the camera shapes I used to work with my logo:

These are some of the designs I have created, as I was creating the designs I did not save all of my designs however these are the major changes that I have created:

For the first designs I used a camera shape and placed my initials into the lens, this is a common design in photography logos and I wanted to see if I could make this work for my own name. I started with the black text but decided it looked to plain and that I needed to change the font, I scrolled through the list of fonts available within Photoshop and found that I preferred the script type writing over fonts such as Arial and Times New Roman. I think that curved writings look more open and friendly whereas Arial would be good for business’s which need to come across very serious and professional; in the creative industry there is more leniency about the ‘look’ of the business and what is expected. My favourite from these first designs is the final one with the red coloured font. I think that is I was going to be shooting mostly new-borns and children after I left university then I would only play around with the purple font more as this seems to be a good match for that kind of photography; but because my focus is on retouching I do not think I will use this colour.

I do like the contrast that the red has against the black and white so I think I am going to be focussing on that, as well as this being related to the branding of GC Photo-Grafics.

For the second designs I wanted to use my initials to create the shape of the camera body, at first the font seemed too rounded and curved to be part of the camera design, I changed the font through the available options but nothing seemed to be working, I think that if I want to use this design I will have to draw out the initials myself using a line tool in order to get the look I am wanting.  At first when creating this design I had my text black but I decided to use colour in order for my initials to stand out against the camera and make it obvious that that is what I was doing.

The third set of designs was a redesign of the first set; I used a different camera outline that made it look more like a digital camera rather than a film camera. However I do prefer the first set as I prefer the camera shape. I think what puts me off is the line above the shape that would be the “shutter” of the camera, this is distracting and I do not think it fits in. I did not experiment with this design, as I did not like it that much, but out of the set I prefer the middle design, I think that shade of purple works really well with the design.

The fourth set of designs did not work at all; I think this is because I removed the circle from the middle so it just appears as a square. At the time I could not work out what was missing so I changed from using my initials to using my full name, this works better but I still feel that this design does not work.

The last camera shape is my personal favourite, I think this is because of the detail within the camera shape; it fills it out and makes it look more professional. I put my name in the camera lens like I had previously but I found I preferred the shutter detail in the lens; this has more connotations of photography.  I then tried to find a way to make my initials emerge from the side of the camera however I did not like this design. I went back to changing the font, I tried to find a more suitable font, and I found that the curved fonts looked better as this looks more professional and friendly than the hard and rigid square designs.

 I like the last design the most because my name appears friendlier yet still remains professional, I have mixed it up for the ‘photography’ to add contrast and draw attention to it, I think minor changes are still needed as I want to blend my name in more with the camera lines so it appears as one rather than my name just stuck on top of it.

One thing that I had to pay attention to: is the spacing between the letters, in the first few designs my name appears too spaced out and looked like two different words. 

Branding

To look more professional and to be easily established as a brand and an identity I am going to be creating a branding style and an identity in my work; not just in my photography or retouching work but within my website style and business cards and any other promotional elements I create such as flyers or leaflets and brochures.

I am going to keep my branding simple and use only two or three colours consistently throughout my blog, website design, business cards, flyers, email headers and all of my social media pages (if possible). In doing this it means my branding will be easily remembered and when somebody sees my work on my pages they will recognise it instantly as something that is mine.

In the retouching world the Photoshop colour scheme is something that is easily recognisable, the use of grey working backgrounds also runs into other software such as Capture One and Lightroom; because of this recognisable colour scheme I am going to be using grey in my branding, I am deciding between keeping my branding monochrome or adding a small amount of colour into the branding. I cannot decide if this would be helpful in making it stand out or whether it would be distracting to the images.

Starting to experiment with branding designs on my website I tried out some monochrome designs, I like these as it gives my website a sleek professional look and the three colours work well together. I might stick with this branding as adding colour would be difficult as getting the colour correct could be difficult, every colour had connotations and I would not know what to use in order to give the impression of a professional, creative, friendly branding.  

In order to use this I have looked into the psychology of colours and what they mean in relation to branding.

Choosing a colour was taken away from me because after being hired by GC Photo-Grafics I decided to use their branding and colour scheme as then I am more related to their branding and I can blend into their business seamlessly. The companies branding scheme is black, white and red; I have also kept the grey colour in some of my promotional items.

This is from a study done on the psychology of colour in brands:

 

One predominate colour preference is blue between both genders with women also preferring the colour purple. This will be an influence when I am looking at choosing colours for my logo design and website accent colour.  I think I am going to try experimenting with purple as in my experience it is mostly women who have been looking at my photography and wanting to hire me; especially for the family photographs.

This is an example from the same study that shows the types of colours that men and women prefer, this will also be an influence in choosing my colour as I am going to look at choosing a nice pastel purple for my branding.

This is an example from another study done on how people perceive colours and what they have been found to represent in brands.

A study was conducted on the world’s top 100 brands; it shows what colours they are using the most (red and blue) with the least used colour being yellow. Black and white are in the middle of the scale.

These analyses show the representing of the colours and what brands they are popular for and which the are rarely used for; Photography is not used in this branding scheme but I still feel that this is relevant to me because of the analysis. I have only included these colours because these are the only colours I am contemplating using.