History of the New LB Insignia

Actually insignia sounds slightly negative to me — as if I’m running a pushy dictatorship or something. That’s definitely not the case. I’ve been wrestling with my personal branding for years. However one thing has surfaced again and again: an icon that incorporates my initials. At one point in time I used 2M3 because of the way I sign my name. The L in Levi looks a lot like a 2 when written in my sloppy cursive, and the B doesn’t have a stem. I’ve thought for years about possibly combining them into one symbol that I could use as my own person icon. 

In 2003 I bought a blue jean jacket. On the tag I drew the following…

This was the start of the journey to combine the two letters. After a couple years obsessing over the number 23, I started to try and bring it out of the numeric realm and add a more personal touch to it. I began by drawing some cursive letterforms.

After my new site launched I realized I needed to revisit this concept. Instead of scanning in these and converting them to vector I decided to just start drawing with my Bamboo Pen. After a bunch of tries I finally decided to use this one.

I took it into Illustrator where I fine-tuned the lines to my liking, and came up with a much cleaner vector version.

I then threw it up on Dribbble to get some feedback. Here’s what I submitted…

I think I’m pretty happy with it, and I really love the fact that it’s fairly versatile. It’s got some history as well as represent the constant learning, playing, and building I’ve been doing over the years.

Self-branding

When you do work for other people you usually make sure everything is perfect before you publish. My personal stuff on the other hand seems to always be a-work-in-progress. Yesterday I launched a redesign of my website. Making something for myself is probably one of the hardest things to do because, as we all know, you are your own worst critic. In the past I’ve tried to avoid branding myself. Instead I would just use Helvetica as the typeface because it feels like air, and typically a greyscale color scheme — pretty boring. While it was quick and easy to produce collateral to match, I didn’t feel like I was establishing myself with my own identity. Yesterday marks the start of a transitional period. I will be slowly transitioning myself into having a brand.

So now that I got the site going, it’s time to really focus on a logo/icon. The one I have now was made in a hurry. I needed something to match the site, but I didn’t want to wait around until my overly critical eye went through it’s steps. Right now it’s definitely lacking, however I do like the fact that I can type it like this (lb). Okay, maybe that’s not so cool. It reminds me too much of Media Temple (mt). Anyway, be looking for that logo/icon to change sometime in the not-to-distant future.