I’ve made a lot of progression in three years of business, especially in my branding. When I first started out, I did my own logo, graphics, print design, color combos, everything! I didn’t have a ton of money to pay a fancy artist to do the work for me, so I had to be happy with what I could do. It was sub-par work, but I was pretty proud of myself for putting such design elements together. I was happy with my black, yellow and self-created Photoshop camera graphic. 🙂

My branding was very important to me then, but it’s WAY more important now. I didn’t really realize three years ago that my branding not only represented my business, but also myself. Since there is so much of myself in my business, I need my branding to encompass that almost 100%. So when the creative wheels starting turning again, I knew I needed “fun, fresh and colorful” to be the focus.

But before I got to “fun, fresh and colorful”, I was at typical and drab with a splash of color…

That’s the logo I created myself about three years ago. I remember being inspired by another logo that I found online and recreated the camera graphic accordingly. I still love that scripty, handwritten-like font, but I’m now realizing it’s way more clear than the camera. Guess my Photoshop skills weren’t as grand three years ago as I thought!

I also thought I needed promotional flyers back in the day. Clearly I’m not a graphic designer…

Eventually I decided it was time to hire someone a little more qualified to create such things, so I called upon my friend Steve who studied art in college and did some graphic design work for a local advertising company. He came up with the custom “jf” part of my logo and the overall concept that still lives in my logo today.

We experimented with a fuchsia and teal color first…

I am so glad we left those colors and started experimenting with my original colors of black, grey and yellow. Here’s what we came up with…

Pretty grand, eh?? I thought so! I loved the soft yet cheery-ness of the yellow and thought it paired nicely with the grey. Here’s the business cards that followed…

Steve designed those for me as well and I loved passing them out! They were so different and creative, and showed off some of my favorite pictures.

But then everyone started using yellow and grey. The colors became pretty dominant in branding and even weddings were overloaded with the combination. I decided that this branding wasn’t allowing me to stand out enough and I needed another change. Something more “fun, fresh and colorful” was in the recipe.

I worked with my friend Rachel, who also studied art in college and was working in graphic design, to put together the branding I have now. We first thought of going with an orange and navy blue combination for my colors, but I had a change of inspiration and fell in love with yellow, pink and white. Eventually blue was added and the “fun, fresh and colorful” message/look was in full swing!

Rachel put together the branding you see now and Kristy of Wreckless Creative helped it blossom and come to life with my blog design. And I’m happy and excited to announce that the branding will finish a complete circle with the addition of my new custom website! 2nd Street Creative in Indianapolis, IN has been working with me for a few months now and we’re in the final stages of website production. The site will resemble my blog for consistency, but there will be some added features that will result in something so visually interesting and appealing, and of course, unique. 🙂 Here’s a little peek at what you can expect from my new website in just a few weeks!

JFP branding has had quite the progression, eh?