Alpha, Dawg
Where strategy meets style
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Alpha, Dawg

Friendboy started a software development company earlier this year, and after only a few months of coaxing, he agreed to take five minutes to talk to me about a logo for his company. I don’t know what his deal is. Half the fun of starting a business is branding.

He named the company Toliman, after one of the three stars that make up Alpha Centauri. Yeah, he’s a geek. He’s also fairly traditional, having worked in computer programming and law–two industries not exactly known for wild creativity. I figured I’d keep things simple and fairly tame.

Since Alpha Centauri is often designated using the α symbol, I knew I wanted to include it in the logo. After playing around with several fonts, I settled on Georgia, a classic serif typeface that works well in print and on the web:

It doesn’t look like much, but this is where the tips I talked about in how to design a simple text logo come into play. I adjusted the kerning, elongated the letters just a touch, and replaced the letter “a” with a green (his favorite color) α symbol.

Can you tell what else I adjusted?

I created two versions of a standard business card–one simple and one slightly more design-y–as well as basic stationery. Do people even communicate via paper any more?

Surprisingly enough, he liked it! I guess if you don’t have a creative brief, it helps to really know your client.

I love these types of projects!

5 Comments
  • Zabrinah's Blog

    July 22, 2010 at 2:58 am

    Hey, I’m really loving your blog! Your posts are interesting and just plain captivating!

    Best wishes from one blogger to another,

    ~Zabrinah

  • Alicia

    July 22, 2010 at 11:05 pm

    Go on with your brand-identity creating self! It looks good.

  • Robyn

    January 27, 2011 at 6:37 pm

    Your posts on branding are always some of my favorite! What type of software do you use to play with the font the way you do… “adjusting the kerning,” stretching the letters, and the like? I’d like to give it a try!

    • tamia

      February 1, 2011 at 10:17 am

      @Robyn I use Adobe Illustrator, which I love, but it’s hella expensive. An open source alternative (free!) is Inkscape http://www.inkscape.org.