I’ve wanted to design a new mark for my fine art photography for awhile now. I’m at a point in my journey where I’ve put a lot of time and study into the craft of photography and, though I still have tons to learn, I feel I’m creating some nice images pretty consistently. I sold quite a few prints this year and had the honor of participating in some local art shows. I hope to get a proper website up and running sometime this summer as a gateway to hopefully selling more prints and participating in more exhibitions to get my stuff out there. I have no desire to be a photographer for hire, I just love to create and share art.
I started to play around with some logo concepts and eventually landed here. I’ve always felt that designing a logo for yourself is much more of a challenge than designing for a client. I find it very difficult to commit to a concept, knowing that it will represent me for the forseeable future. The other challenge is that by the time I refine the design to a point that I feel it’s ready for public viewing I’m almost sick of it. I’ve been looking at this thing and tweaking it for almost a month and, though I do like it, I’m also a little over it!
Anyway, this is what I came up with and I’m going to start using this as my watermark for all future photography images I post. I’ve seen a few other companies use a graphic representation of iris blades in a logo (Adorama comes to mind) so I don’t claim to be breaking new ground in that respect but I’ve not seen anyone tie it together with a monogram before so hopefully what I’ve created will be seen as unique. The modern iris (or diaphragm, or aperture, or whatever term you prefer) is pretty recognizable even to those who are not photographers and I’ve always loved the graphic, mechanical look of it. I wanted a mark that would somehow represent the craft of photography even without the signature text (as seen on the top) and I think that was achieved. I spent a lot of time creating the “JK” monogram and trying to unify the angles of the letter forms with the angles of the iris blades. I’m at a point now where I’m still not 100% sure I love it but it’s been worked to death and it’s time to call it done. So, for better or worse, here’s my new logo.
© 2013 Johnny Kerr Photography