The Birth of an Identity
As human beings, we have all had those quaint, melancholic moments in life where we quietly ask ourselves, “Who am I?”. These type of moments usually come to us when something significant or of impact crashes in on our lives. This is a question that is not only important to ask ourselves every now and then in our general, day-to-day lives, but it is also a question that we must ask ourselves as designers. In the modern design industry, it has become an imperative that we as designers create and maintain our own distinct, personal identity with which we communicate with our clients and peers under.
The above is the thought process that I was maintaining throughout the Principles of Digital Design course at Utah Valley University. It all began with the creation of a personal logo.
One of the first assignments that I had in the course was creating a logo that would be used for the rest of the semester. This was, perhaps, the most challenging assignment of the entire semester. Come up with a logo that represents you as a designer and all of the work that you will be creating… sounds pretty daunting, if you ask me. However, I took a stab at it and came up with 3 different logo variations.
The first is a combination of the first two letters of my first name and the first two letters of my last name: John Toral. The little teal carat at the end was added due to the interest I had in UI design. The second is a combination of my initials — creative, I know. However, while looking online, I noticed that most logos created from the letters J and T looked the same. And not only did most of them look the same, but they also looked like a Pi symbol. What the heck, people. So because of this, I chose to use lowercase letters in my logotype. The third variation was more based on my love for Japanese media, and so I aimed to make it have a look that resembled Japanese Kanji. Eventually, I decided that the first was too long horizontally and that the third looked to similar to the word “it”, so I went with the second one. And I felt that this was the appropriate pick, as I am a simple guy that loves simple, minimal design. As far as the electric teal… well, I am a bit of an energetic guy, so I knew that I wanted a color that was catchy and full of energy.
After the logo design, I then began to think about how to appropriately and creatively incorporate the logo that I had designed within the context of a business card. So, after a bit of thought and sketching, I ultimately decided to incorporate the logotype onto a vertically-oriented business card in a large, striking fashion to make the letters within the logotype seem more than just the simple letters that they really are. I then decided to incorporate a “Hello” message in front of the business card to add a bit of a playful aspect to the card.
The final part of designing my own identity was creating a high-fidelity website mockup that tied in both the logo and business card that I had designed earlier. For the website design, I decided to incorporate the same color scheme as my business card and logo designs. This was, of course, to maintain consistency across the brand that I had essentially created for myself.
Just like the bold “Hello” message that was included on the front of my business card, I decided to include bold call-to-action hero text, as well as a bold call-to-action button. I then included a menu icon on the top right corner that I felt was distinct, but similar enough to traditional hamburger menus to imply the same kind of familiar usability. Afterwards, I decided to include a few relevant social media icons at the bottom left of the website in case visitors and potential clients and employers felt the need to connect with me on a more personal level. And finally, I added in my logotype and name on the top left to finalize the unique identity of my website.
The concepts that I learned in this class were definitely valuable and I am sure to apply these concepts to my life-long journey as a designer. A personal design identity is something that I know I will have to foster throughout my entire career, and this course has aided me in my ability to recognize and understand that. So there you have it. My journey from being an identity-less to a designer with a full-blown identity and personal branding.
John Toral is a student in the Digital Media program at Utah Valley University, Orem Utah, studying Interaction & Design. The following article relates to (Final Project) in the (DGM 2250 Course) and is representative of the skills learned.
