A logo for Gary
My gift to our Dog Groomer, or rather, someone who we hired to take care of our dogs, he is not our Dog Groomer. His name is Gary and his business is Gary's Pet Services: Dog Groomer & Tank Cleaning (I assume that's fish tanks).
He shows up with his table and tools in the back of a hatchback, but he takes such pride and care in his work. He has a cheap vinyl sign on the back of the car with his contact details, and a raggedy vector dog graphic.
I paid him and said, hey Gary, I am going to create a logo for you and a new sticker for your car, he was extremely grateful with a thank you. I did not decide to do this out of pity, I like to see people with what I call nifty businesses, I love businesses like Gary's, I love animals, I love our dogs. Many of these small businesses/startups are not designers, they think of ways to make money and get what they need to start. I saw Gary as one of these people, he provides a service and I wanted to help him look good doing it. A nice little business he runs from his car, if I could, I would buy him a small van and deck it out as an investor. I am a bit of an empath, or so I have been told, no I don't have paranormal abilities...
Free in the sense that I won't be exchanging money for this logo, the value I get from him which I pay for, is taking good care of our dogs.
I needed to create something functional, "good looking", valuable to Gary's business despite not charging for it. This means finding optimal ways of developing a good logo and in my mind it needed to be something fun, loving even. I looked for references on the internet of what I had in mind. When I found a reference that was close to the idea I had for my sketch, I modified it in the sketch, and redraw it in Adobe Illustrator.
As a Designer, and Brand Professional, it is a bit hard for me to ignore bad design...Especially when people charge for it.
Gary's new logo
Gary's business cards
Phillip J. Clayton - Brand Design & Development | Judge: pac-awards.com | Writer | Art & Design | Founding Partner - Personal Overview