EDDIEWONG

Despite being educated as a graphic designer, I have never actually created a symbol for myself. Reason being, as a graphic designer, we are always tied to concept and theme (which I will not go into). This means, at the very least, my logo has to say what I do and who I am, etc.

But since the passing of Ulala, I think I can finally let that rule go when creating a logo for myself. Ulala is a bunny I spent a lot of time on and loved. Now that he is no longer here, I wish to keep him alive by associating him with my name. That is the only reason I have for using a bunny as my logo. It says nothing about who I am, it says nothing about what I do, it says nothing about graphic design, period. It is just there because he was my bunny…, so I thought. But after starting this, I realised that a bunny does have something to do with me: I was born in the year of the rabbit and around easter time (unless you want to say chicken is more to do with easter because of easter eggs). Still, it says nothing about what I do but at least it has a little more to do with me. So yeah, Ulala as my logo it is…

The symbol was created with a single shape, the simplest of shapes: circle. No matter which part of the symbol you look at, its just a circle either squashed horizontally or vertically. Then each circle was simply placed one above the other to form the shape of a bunny… :

© Copyright 2007 eddie.

Once the shapes are in place resembling a bunny, I experimented with different positions for the head and tail (plus from one ear to two ears)… :

© Copyright 2007 eddie.

Selecting the one I was most happy with, I evolved it a little by changing the colour and cleaning up some of the line weights. I chose a light grey colour for the bunny obviously because Ulala is light grey. As well as adjusting one of the ears to flop, I then decided to use a darker grey for the eyes (again Ulala’s eyes are dark in colour) just to add a bit of dynamic-ness to the symbol. Symbols always look better if the overall number of shades are kept to a minimal with only one vivid/stronger colour for a single element to bring it out. A red eye would have been most ideal but that wouldn’t be Ulala then… so yeah, had to compromise a bit… :

© Copyright 2007 eddie.

Happy with the final look, I then tested filling in the whites with grey but it didn’t work as well for a symbol… :

© Copyright 2007 eddie.

Then the hardest part, combining the symbol with text to form a logo. As you can see, I tried to make the symbol represent a letter (these are experiments so most do not work). Personally, I liked the first one on the third row until I showed it to my sister’s kid who spotted that the words “die” stood out too much (OK, Ulala is no longer around but still…). To combat the problem, I tried swapping the symbol with the second “d” in my name (third row, second) but the first “d” and the “i” kinda looks like it is trapping the bunny, like it has no where to run nor breathe… :

© Copyright 2007 eddie.

The other one I like is the last one, how the bunny’s eye is also the “period” at the end of my name. This one is actually the best because the eye already stands out due to its stronger colour and the fact that the “period” at the end of my name is unique. It highlights what needs to be highlighted. But it does have it’s problems: it will be quite difficult to apply this combination to a variety of medias due to visual balancing!

But anyway, I will more than likely go with this one once I clean it up (”period” too far from my name, colour, etc.) :

© Copyright 2007 eddie.

For those wondering why I have a “period” at the end of my name: it’s there to say that I am the only Eddie who does what I do and is good at it, etc., etc., etc. Something like that. “I’m unique and theres only one me”… yeah, definitely something like that… hahahahhaha. I also remember a time when I wrote my name as ED-E, plus many other ways… … :

© Copyright 2007 eddie.

BONUS! Some shameful mess-around hand sketches before I sat down and really thought about how I wanted the symbol to look… :

© Copyright 2007 eddie.