Story of a logo

I’ve been intending to talk a bit about my new logo since the updated site went live a few months ago. A featured post interviewing the logo’s designer, the talented Mariana Murabito at Monok, on popular blog LogoGala has kicked me into action.

It was important to me to establish a brand from day one of freelancing, to make me look professional, credible and also memorable. I spent quite some time thinking up a name that described the service I offered, then used the logo on my website, invoices, quotes and other documents.

In the beginning, there was…

The first design was my amateur attempt using Photoshop. I’m sure it would have made any ‘proper’ designer have kittens! However, as I was starting out with little funds, it was the best solution at the time.

The original, amateur logo

I can’t say I gave any reasoned thought to its appearance; I tried out some simple colourways that I liked and chose a font that was easy to read (reflecting online best practice for web-friendly typefaces).

A sleeker and more professional look

Two years into freelancing, it was time for a fresh look for both the logo and the website. I’d been working with the team at Monok and had already admired Mariana’s work for other brands. So, as she knew my services and my personality, it seemed logical to ask her to come up with something for me.

The updated, fresh and modern logo

The end result speaks for itself; it’s modern, easy to read and includes a unique ‘speech bubble’ device (based on the two ‘C’s of the brand name and the copyright mark) that can be used on its own.

Read the interview with Mariana on the LogoGala blog or visit web agency Monok’s website to find out more about the company’s work.

Useful tools: Delicious

In the second of this (very) occasional series about things I use to help me work, I want to talk about Delicious. It’s been around for a while, and indeed I’ve been using it since I started up as a freelancer. Its staying power can only be a good thing!

It’s ideal for keeping track of all those handy articles I find and read (or intend to read…), as well as sharing them via my websites. However, it was only at the weekend when I had a bit of a fiddle around with it that I discovered some handy features.

From many to one

Previously, I had a Delicious account for each of my blogs (which proliferate faster than I can keep up), with a different log-in for each. In addition, since Yahoo bought Delicious, many of these now have Yahoo log-ins instead.

Fed up with all these different usernames and passwords (plus I don’t use Yahoo for anything else), I decided to bring all my bookmarks (both public and private) under my original account. Delicious offers an easy-peasy import and export tool for doing just that.

Tailored link rolls

However, I don’t want all my bookmarks to show on each website; they’re very different topics. So, I created a tag specific to each one, which I apply as relevant to the saved article. Delicious’ link roll tool then allows me to specific that tag when creating the each feed.

In addition, there’s an option to bundle articles and pages with specific tags (like Gmail’s labelling system), to help you quickly see articles once in your account (rather than searching by a specific tag).

Keeping things private

Of course, some pages are not for the general public, and there’s a simple ‘private’ option (which also appears as a tag) to make sure these are kept hidden. I’m sure there are other tools still to discover too.

And, hey presto, one account with a single username and password, but tailored for each blog. Now I just need to remember to use the correct tag (the one possible source of error!). Follow me on Delicious.