Today I’m proud to let you know about Logofolio.net, a Logo Portfolio Theme, I’m helping design, for the Logo Design community.

Since the launch of my site, earlier this year, I have received a lot of emails asking me if my site was a WordPress theme and if so where could they buy it. After getting tens of emails, I started thinking of how hard it was for me before I launched my site and how busy I’ve gotten since the re-design, so I decided to help out my fellow community members by working with UiTuners to develop a WordPress Theme for logo designers that’s easy to customize, launch and edit.

Since I launched my new site, I’m getting several projects per month and I hope you all can do the same. Lets take back the projects that go to companies like Logoworks and Logoloft and show the world what good logo design work looks like. We can only make this happen if we all have our own sites and teach the business world the importance of good logo design work.

Stop by Logofolio.net. Tweet @LogofolioTheme and let other members of the community know what you think about Logofolio.

I look forward to helping anyone out. You can also contact Jose Mendoza form UiTuners.com by emailing him at jose@uituners.com.

We all love type and use it daily, but have you ever looked really close at how it was designed? The details of a well designed typeface often go unnoticed, so lets take a closer look.

When you see a professionally designed typeface everything looks well balanced aligned and perfect. You may think that all the characters have the same height and weight but this is not always true. This effect is an optical illusion that typographers must master and is only achieved through practice and attention to detail. In general, no matter what style the type is, most typeface’s carry the same attributes for optical reasons.

Obviously it’s much less of an issue when using a more square typeface. In general the sharper the apex and vertex of your characters and how oblique, rounded, or squared your letters are makes a major difference in designing your typeface.

Now that you’re armed with this added insight, you’ll be able to appreciate a well designed typeface even more and be able to modify it into your own custom type while maintaining the elements that make the typeface work.

Early in my career as a designer I found myself using incorrect terminology when explaining about a typeface to my clients. I would say things like “that vertical stroke on the A”, or “the inside negative space of the O.” I thought to myself, maybe my clients know what that is called and I’m looking

pretty inexperienced here. It was not until I studied typography and started designing typeface professionally I realized that being a designer I should probably use the correct terminology when explaining my work. So I have put together a quick reference of the correct terminology used with letterforms and typeface. I hope this helps clients and designers alike.

serif and sans serif type

slab serif and cupped serif

hairline and bracketed serif

apex and vertex

ascender and descender

counter and lobe or bowl

stem and arms

crossbar and tail

tail or swash

ball terminal or kern

Oh and Please use the word typography when explaining about type, not “typo” because in my book typo means a typographical error.

My Very first blog post is the wonderful transformation of a new identity and a new website.

Logo Motive Designs was started in October 1998. The name came to me by 3 reasons.

1. Being a 3rd Generation of Railroaders ( I was a conductor @UP along with my Dad @SP/Up

2. I live in a Railroad city (Roseville)

3. I’m a Logo designer.

My original website used RR Tracks and RR ties as navigational links, with Logomotive (mark) subtle hints of a train.

This site did me well for the first year or two, but I was asked by many “So do you like trains?”.

I began to wonder if people understood why I chose the name LogoMotive. I started questioning my strategy and wondered if the average viewer would relate why I chose the name and how it relates to my services, after all it does sounds almost like Locomotive.

Struggling with wondering if people would “get it” this lead to me to one of the craziest moves that I probably should have avoided. I had a client that wanted me to design a duck mascot for his business, I believe the business name was “Ducky Deals”, a car dealership. The client did not care for MY original duck and wanted a “cheesier” looking duck. I loved this original duck and thought the client was crazy. So to make a long story short I decided this was going to become Logomotive’s duck. Yes it was a very odd and strange choice but for 10 years this duck did his job and all my clients related the duck to Logo Motive Designs.

Logomotive duck

Over the 10 years using “Ducky” as a mascot along with my broken down website, I was ridiculed by many of my design peers about my duck and my website. My peers would ask me “why the duck?” and you need a new website. I knew all this and I agreed with everyone of them. The problem was I was so busy designing and tending to family matters that I had very little time to focus on my own identity and website. So life went on…

Around 2009, I decided it was finally time to reconstruct my own identity. So back to my existing game plan of Logomotive the train. During some spare time, which is very little these days raising 4 kids and operating a business, I began my second attempt at branding my Logomotive name.

My Initial concept for this second attempt of my brand was designing a cowcatcher (that front part of a train) that had an L shape to represent a Locomotive and show some creativity and branding potential. The problem was (after asking a few designers),.. very few  knew what a cowcatcher was, not to mention I was not doing any back flips and was not “stoked” about the mark myself. I mean after all I have to be happy with my identity  right?

LogoMotive Cowcatcher

Back to the drawing board. My next concept came from some rough drafts. I thought somehow I could design RR tracks in shape of an L. this is something that everyone could relate to and understand. While designing these RR tracks I had the most wonderful AH HA! Eureka! moment and I had an immense amount of adrenaline juice run through me. I noticed that these L shaped train tracks I had been working on, sort of resembled an old steam locomotive. YES! That’s it! I made some extreme measures to combine the RR tracks  and the steam locomotive into one.

Logomotive Train Tracks

Using precise execution, I achieved the perfect mark for Logomotive. The icing on the cake was using the negative space of the tracks/train for doubling in concept as smoke or (thought bubbles), this was a great suggestion from my good friend Roy Smith.

Final Logomotive Identity.

Now that I had my new Logomotive Identity, I needed a new website. By Luck and Gods will, Jose Mendoza found me and my identity work and put in a request for logo design. This is what lead to the wonderful transformation of the NEW Logo Motive Designs/ Logomotive.net

“Jose your Brilliant and a great designer, I cannot thank you enough.”

Mike Erickson