Presenting Yourself

You may have noticed that I changed the page somewhat so I could display my new logo.

Logos are interesting. Sometimes they are really easy to think of and design. Some of them take much longer. A graphic artist usually charges at least $200 to make a logo for someone, and I can understand why. To be successful, a single, simple image needs to convey so much!

I have been lucky with my logos. For my real estate business where I sell and help people to find eco-friendly homes, I came up with this one. The name of my company is HearthFire Eco-Properties, and you can see how it all figures in. This one came in a flash of inspiration.

For the Druid grove I run, I came up with this one. The name of the grove is EarthLove Fellowship. This one was more of a description of the name. The inspiration came in the shape of the flame. Since EarthLove Fellowship is a grove of the non-profit organization, FoDLA, I used the same shape found in the FoDLA logo on their website (http://www.fodla.org). Here it is:

For Comic Zone, the comic book store I run with my two sons and partner, I must admit this one was my son’s creation. He is the comic book expert, and he is also the graphic artist in the family. I go to him with my ideas, and he makes them happen. 🙂 This is a typical comic book font, but done in an attractive way that makes us noticeable and tells everyone exactly who we are:

But by far, my favorite is my current logo for this site and for my coaching business:

This one took me months to create. It started out as a doodle of a dollar sign in a circle. Then I noticed how, if I shaped the dollar sign correctly, it would make the yin-yang symbol, a true symbol of balance. I knew I wanted the outline in gold, and I knew I wanted green in there, but that was as far as I had gotten for quite a while. Then one day, in a flash of inspiration, I drew the S part of the dollar sign differently, so that it split the circle into four parts. At that moment, I knew I had it. I also knew that the other color would be blue. So, what does this all mean to me?

First of all, I used the dollar sign as a symbol of prosperity, a commonly held perception in this country. But I made it with one line, not two. One line makes it look more like the world on its axis. And having an axis is very important to each of our worlds. We need to be grounded in the physical as well as open to the spiritual. The four quadrants are directly related to the four parts of the personality in Jungian thought – physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual – and I use those four parts in my initial assessments, so that I can best come up with a game plan for any particular client to come more quickly into balance in wholeness. I chose the colors green and blue to again show the relationship between earth and sky, and also a subtle reference to the colors of the sea. If you look at the way the S is now drawn, it makes the diagram appear to be spinning in a clockwise direction. From research I have done on the swastika, a clockwise spinning swastika actually is considered good fortune, wisdom, luck, and love. It is often used in Siberian shamanism as a tool to give clients good dreams. (Incidentally, the counter-clockwise spinning swastika stood for power and might, and that is the tragic one with which we are more familiar.) Having the actual symbol created like a three-dimensional gold bar is another piece to the idea of prosperity. The crispness of the design and the lettering also point to the clarity of a well-balanced, focused life.

My son did a tremendous job of putting my ideas together into actuality. He is a free-lance graphic artist, and ultimately, he did all of the designs above, so if you need any graphic art work done, please feel free to leave me a message or contact him directly by email at andy@psychoandy.com.