Breaking Down the Logo Design Process: Tracy Affonso Yoga

Here's one of the many reasons that I love the internet + blogging/social media world: over two years ago at Love Yoga Fest, I had a booth where I sold my art. During the festival, a wonderfully kind and complimentary yogi (who I would later learn was Tracy Affonso) purchased some art from my booth. 

A few weeks later, she reached out via Facebook (or Etsy? I can't remember...) and purchased another one of my prints as a gift for a friend. Again, she was lovely to connect with and I was so happy we were now friends online! I saw her again at Love Yoga Fest 2015, where she attended my workshop, and since then, we've connected every once in a while via social media and/or when she's popped into one of my classes while visiting the Cape.

Fast forward to earlier this year, and Tracy is now a yoga teacher making her first website and getting ready to take her teaching to the next level. I am thrilled for her, so when she reached asking if I would design the logo for her new business, I was ecstatic! There's just something about getting your own custom logo that makes things feel official, you know? 

So anyways, Tracy was (obviously) fabulous to work with and we had so much fun coming up with her final logo, which is above. 

Here's the process of creating said logo...

Step 1: Design Inspiration + Initial Sketches
To start, Tracy and I had a quick phone chat. We discussed the colors, images, shapes, and emblems she's drawn to, the vibe she wanted her logo to convey, and her favorite font styles. She sent over some inspiration images and in a final email, mentioned that after thinking more about it, she wanted to go with an elephant image in her logo. Thus, I presented her with the 6 initial sketches below--all very different kinds of elephants, as you can see!

Step 2: Narrowing it Down + Sketch Revision 
From the above sketches, Tracy liked the first and second sketches the best, but wanted to see some small changes to each as she decided which one she liked the most. I made those tweaks (to the eyes and placement of the text on the first design + the placement of the text on the second design) and after some deliberation, she chose the first sketch on the second row (below) as her final composition. 

Step 3: Final Pencil Draft Approval
Once she had selected her favorite sketch, I created a larger, more detailed pencil draft of her logo. I sent this over for her approval and gave her a chance to make any final tweaks before I added color.

Step 4: Color Scheme Selection
Before I could add color, we had to choose a color scheme. In our initial phone call she told me that she liked purples, blues, and greys, so I sent her some color palette inspiration (from Design-Seeds.com) and asked her if any jumped out at her. She chose palette #4 as her favorite, so I created a similar palette in watercolor and sent it over for her approval. 

Step 5: Final Logo Approval!
The next step was to paint her logo in watercolor. That just took time, but I had so much fun painting all of the little decorative details on the elephant. Once I was finished, I sent it over to Tracy and she had no changes--the logo was complete!

Step 6: Style Guide Creation + Logo Files Delivery
To close out the project, I sent Tracy a style guide (which you can see below) so that she could design her website more easily. I also provided her with secondary versions of her logo--which separated out the text and the elephant--in case she wanted to use them separately for social media. 

And there you have it! Another fun logo project in the bag ;)  

Thanks again for connecting, Tracy! It was an honor to create this special logo for you. 

Learn more about my logo design process here.