Personal Logo

I have been fiddling around for a while with ideas for a new personal logo. Everything was coming out pretty boring and generic so I decided to make it more personal and draw influence from my two favorite things: Russian folk art and fairy tales. I looked at illuminated manuscript images such as the ones below, because they reminded me of the illuminated first letter of a chapter in old story books:

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2008/04/18/arts/18morg_CA1.ready.html

I also looked at objects painted with Khokhloma (which I have all over my house). Khokhloma is a wood painting technique, where floral and sometimes animal patterns are painted on a black background with red, green, and gold. Khokhloma is usually painted on wooden objects, especially tableware.

Source: http://tveruzor.com/_EN_RussianCrafts.php

I also drew influence from gothic lettering, because I like their fancy scroll look. Anyway, this is what I came up with. The V was especially challenging because a regular V shape that we are all used to just did not look good in a square, so I had to use the gothic version with a straight side. I will probably tweak it some more later but for now I am pretty content with it: 

Some color versions. The first one is in the traditional Russian Khokhloma colors and the second two are some variations.