From Doodle to Logo | How I designed SHNANON

Hi again!

Today I thought I'd walk through how I went from a notebook doodle to a fully custom logo! So, the name idea came from when I was studying Graphic Design as a second option for my Instagram portfolio name. Since I previously used rat_designs_uk, this was the next best option! With that in mind, I had a rough idea of what I wanted.

I knew I wanted to incorporate rats still as they are my favourite thing to exist. I just needed a way of including them in the logo. I also wanted to have a text variation of the logo with the abstract mascot being a secondary variation. To do this I had to look at all of the letters in the word 'shnanon' and find what works best as a rat. In its lower-case form, I found that I could maybe make the 'o' the rat but it doesn't sit in a nice place. From this, I decided that it needed to be the 'a' that was the rat. I had to experiment a little bit to be able to get it to work and not look awkward.

The 'a' being capital worked better in this case as it fits with the long nose that rats distinctly have. I then began to work on a few doodles to get an idea of what I wanted it to look like. I turned the A upside down to form the head of the rat and went from there!

Using just lines made the rat not stand out enough against the rest of the letters. I also found that the eyes being in the middle of the head looked a bit silly when made bolder. I decided to also get rid of the middle line of the 'A' to make it flow better and so there wasn't a tiny gap making the rat look awkward. Overall, I would say maybe I could have experimented a bit more with this but I was happy with what I had come up with.

It was time to decide on a typeface to use for the logo itself. I went through and experimented with how 'SHNANON' worked with each font family. This led me to the choice of using 'KoHo' as the main typeface for the letters. Instead of using an 'A' for the rat, I used a V to ensure it was exactly in the right place and to make sure the middle line was not there. I typed out the name and then rasterized the type to make it editable as shapes. I wanted to add a little bit of chaos to the logo as it's something that I find comfort in, so I shuffled the letters about a bit to make it feel less uniform and corporate. Then, it was time to choose the colours!

I chose a variant of my favourite colour, sage green, to be the main colour of the type. I then took inspiration from my pet rat for the colouring of the rat in the middle of the logo: brownish-grey with peach ears and nose. This worked well together and it contrasted nicely with each other. The rat in the middle could also be used as a sort of abstract mascot logo on its own for smaller contexts.

Finally, we've reached the end. Thank you for reading how I went from a doodle to a full logo. This process may seem quick but actually, it takes weeks of research and experimentation to find something you like that works. Good luck with your logo, I hope I have inspired you!

-Shannon