The Epigon

First finished drawing of my logo, which I’ve used for representing my production work.

Over the past few years I have used the logo I drew, presented above, as a representation of my work. Like my last blog stated, I would write in reference to describing the process I went through to making my own logo segment.

I spent several days drawing out different design that I felt represented myself, and my work best. I like design, specifically minimal design, so I wanted something that was simple, and to the point. I have always been a big fan of Batman, and if you look, you can see a resembling factor to his Bat symbol, especially the most recent one from the Dark Knight series:

Batman symbol variations, symbol on right from the 00’s, and left from the 90's.

From there, I also of course wanted to incorporate my name into the logo, being that my first name begins with an “M”, I decided to incorporate the letter “M” into the design. If you glance, you might be capable of seeing the “M” shape, which resembles closely to the Bat symbol, upside down, but with only one ear for the bat silhouette, instead of two.

I still needed to refine it, something to make it look sharp, which left me thinking something dramatic. I couldn’t let go of the Bat symbol just yet, which led me to thinking about this 90's version I saw when I was a kid.

With the incorporation of the blades in that scene, I knew I needed to do the same with my logo and give it a cutting edge.

I began to find myself drawing designs over and over, making subtle changes here and there, I have a legal pad somewhere, full of of about 600 different variations of that logo I’d drawn up above. In fact, that one there wasn’t the first, you can see a couple of others drawn on the back of that paper too.

I didn’t get much further from the logo drawn there for a while, I transferred it from a scan, to create a Photoshopped, almost graphic designed version of the drawing. Which was much straighter than I could’ve actually drawn it.

After taking the scan, and making into a graphic, I decided, over time, that it wasn’t quite finished. I wanted to refine the blades, because at the first graphic design (left), it was obviously more like a diamond shape, than a blade.

Original Epigon graphic right, redesigned version on left.

I wanted to give a realistic looking blade design to it. So I examined images of blades and noticed that real blades had a trademark texture, I also then wanted to incorporate a texture into the dark areas as well (the body of the logo). I imagined the body being like a rubber grip, or a handle to something, containing somewhat of a porous looking texture.

The blade needed to be more than just a silver colored diamond, it needed to be sharp, the edge specifically. I observed how a lot of blades tended to be a lighter shade of grey as the metal was refined to a point, a bevel almost. and that’s the main key to giving it a sharper, more defined edge I believe.

Involving the logo into a moving segment was a fun idea, yet the process was more involved. I will say the work was worth it, but was unforgettable. I branded my brain with a memory for getting this thing to move.

Thomas Edison (the light bulb guy) once said, “If we all did the things we were capable of, we would astound ourselves.” He is also considered the inventor of the motion picture camera, but that’s debatable between him and some other fellas.

Making this logo move was a slow process, a gradual step by step kind of thing. I observed networks on television that did small movements with their logos, and studied how they would go from a transparency at the bottom corner of the screen, to a vivid full color lively thing that would distract anyone not wanting to see it. Just observe any logo presently on anything, even on YouTube, you can clearly see my point.

A Nickelodeon Bumper from 1995, these were usually aired between shows or commercial breaks.

I used Motion software, in collaboration with Photoshop. I broke the logo into pieces, and the pieces I wanted to move became their own part to a whole entire segment. The blades were put onto a motion track, and timed to move simultaneously with one another, as the body of the Epigon (that’s what I call my logo) moved separately on it’s own line of track as well.

The first few little animations I made weren’t that great, but the more practice I put into it, the more I understood how it all worked, and gravity.

CBS Network logo example from the 1950's!

NBC Network logo example.

ABC Studios logo example.

You can see, by observing these logo examples, the differences, and yet the similarities between them all. They’re all quick, animated, and consist of their own soundtrack jingle as well.

For mine, I’ve yet to get a jingle, but I feel the sound effect I put together works for now:

Thanks for viewing, I hope you’re inspired to be creative!