At an early age, I found myself making silly pictures in Microsoft Paint using Super Mario sprites I found online. My dad noticed my creation and taught me how to use Photoshop. Soon, I was creating digital art with a Wacom tablet! I would sketch some characters, scan my sketch onto my computer, then retrace everything inPhotoshop.
The excitement of creating digital art never really went away. Recently, I discovered the movement of creating oversimplified logos. It posed an interesting design challenge, how can I create something simple, identifiable, and usable on multiple mediums. Thus, I made myself available to create the logos for some of my friends' side hustles! Here is a small showcase of what I have created.
Three Cheers Coffee Co
This is a personal favorite of mine. My brother-in-law is obsessed with coffee, so much that he began to roast his own. To him, coffee is more than just energy in the morning, but something to be celebrated because of its power to bring people together. He summarized his vision of his brand as, a party.
I also had the privilage of creating a landing page for his hustle. You can check it out here.
Nas-Talgia
A good friend of mine finds herself daydreaming of the good old days of the '90s. You know, the bright primary pastels, the TAMAGOTCHI pets, the classic Nickelodeon cartoons. To reminisce the wonderful era, she created a podcast so listeners can take a walk down memory lane with her. For her logo, she wanted a throwback to '90s culture with a modern color palette. So to capture this, her logo references stickers on a composition notebook. You can listen to her podcast on Spotify.
Unseen Threads
For a season, I wanted to create t-shirts. My dream was to create simple and subtle designs so that you could match my shirts with many outfits. Many of my designs remain in the sketch phase even to this day. The logistics of printing, storing, and selling shirts became more than I could handle at the time. I hope to be able to pick up on this side project once again.
Even though I have not been able to focus on this hustle recently, I was able to collaborate with my church to create a design. With their help, I was actually able to sell just about 200 shirts! Here is a photo of the finished product.
Tarolyn
My wife Carolyn and I love to game and from time to time we will stream on Twitch. For the fun of it, I created a logo for her inspired by one of her favorite drinks, taro tea. This logo was quite fun to create because it was the first time I started playing around with gradients.
If you made it this far, I would love to hear what you think about these!