Well hello you (voice of Moira Rose lives permanently in my head, sorry not sorry). Welcome back, or just welcome for the first time? Either way, I’m glad you are here! I am kinda giddy right now – I made it official! I’m working with an amazing artist on creating a new logo for Good Dog Happy Dog! What, you thought I made something else official? ha! But truly, I am bursting inside.
You see, a few months back, in the middle of the night, I had this awful thought. AWFUL. Blurry eyed, I pulled up my phone from bed (don’t shame me), it was dark all around me, my dog snoring at my feet and everything around me seemed fine. But I was in panic mode. Well, that’s dramatic, but I had this feeling that I was sending the wrong message out to the world. Let’s just say I am pretty darn vocal and opinionated when it comes to politics in this country (that’s another post, …nah, that’s another website – check me out on bluesky for that). The idea that I would be misrepresented by my own damn logo, the I one I created on a whim during dog training school, ahh, it freaked me out! Like had I not seen it in that light before? Let’s just say this logo, that mind you, was something I actually liked for a while, was an innocent round black and white circle, a font that I spent way too much time choosing, that I had filled in with this gorgeous deep maroon that looked warm and stated. It was cursive, something my gen X eyes reads fluently. So there I was, in the dark, looking at this logo and feeling that I somehow betrayed myself, or my clients, or something else I’m not quite sure I can put into words. So, like any normal rational person I went to bed – ha! yea right. No! I got my computer out and started designing a new logo in canva on little sleep and blurry vision. As one does. And I got something out there. It was fine. I basically just did the opposite of what I had, or what opposite felt like at the moment. I did two circles (not just one!), picked this gorgeous teal color. I typed out my business name, scrolled through the fonts making sure to look at only sans serif print fonts, as basic as possible that at least wasn’t arial. In the light of day, and likely a pot of coffee later, I added a few things. Brought up my free knock-off version of photoshop to add the last few details and said, screw it. That’s the new logo. For now at least. So I posted it, put it on my website, changed the maroons to teal, did my best to update my old logo wherever I may have put it around the internet. And it was…fine. I was glad to not feel associated to a political party that goes against everything in my being, but the new logo just seemed flat and not exactly inspiring.
After a few months of living with this new logo, I realized it just wasn’t right and my design skills are well, lacking. So I reached out to my dog pro business group for recommendations of artists they’ve worked with before. I got a bunch of great recs and looked through portfolios and and started paying attention to logos. Picking out which ones I really liked, even ones that I didn’t (hey, at this point my own logo was in the ‘no’ pile!). When I came across Rosie’s portfolio and went through her work, it clicked! Like wow, she’s cool. She’s edgy, but also fun, and bold but not pretentious. She wasn’t afraid of showing off exactly who she was, she wasn’t trying to fit into a box of rules, and it just made her work pop out to me. In true me fashion, I reached out and sent an email with way too many words, a jumble of ideas, and with the caveat that I was just about to head out on a road trip with my dog to the woods where I won’t have internet access for a week. Well, despite my crazy intro and plea for help, Rosie reached out and agreed to work with me! She’s been a delight to work with and was able to parse through my ideas, ask the best questions and get to the root of who I am and what my business represents.
And this week, I got the first look into the new logo!! I’m so excited. We had a lovely chat over Zoom where she walked me through the various elements, the design decisions she made, the look and feel and how it can be used in all sorts of formats. eeks! It’s so cool. I might have teared up, I don’t remember. But I’m an emotional person, so it’s likely. While on this call, excited for this new look, I knew immediately that if I tried to just plug it into my existing site and place it around like I did previously, I wouldn’t do it justice. Sheepishly, I ask Rosie….would you still continue working with me and help me recreate the website? please? Oh boy was I excited when she said yes! I think she was excited too! I mean, if I had design skills and saw my work be butchered, I would be a bit bummed. So, as I type this, we are working together on redesigning the website. Again, Rosie knows how to ask the right questions, focus on not just my services, but get to the root of who I am and what my business represents. So hooray for Rosie! I can’t recommend her enough.
