Event Logos

(Clockwise from upper left)

Young Native Writers Essay Contest
Client: Holland+Knight Charitable Foundation, Inc.
Location: Tampa, FL USA

A nationwide essay contest, sponsored by the Holland+Knight Charitable Foundation, is represented by this logo featuring an eagle feather as a writing instrument. The input of tribal leaders was sought in the process of creating the image. The logo appears in The Big Book of Logos 5 and 100's Visual Logos and Letterheads.

Learn more about the process of creating this logo on bLog-oMotives.

St. Johns Window Project
Client: St. Johns Window Project
Location: Portland, OR USA

This pro bono design represents an annual art event in Portland during which art installations are featured in retail storefronts. The effort received a 2003 American Graphic Design Award from Graphic Design: usa magazine. It appears in The Big Book of Logos 5 and 100's Visual Logos and Letterheads.

Native Youth Internship Program
Client: Holland+Knight Charitable Foundation, Inc.
Location: Tampa, FL USA

Another identity created for the Holland+Knight Charitable Foundation. This logo identifies the Native Youth Internship Program initiated by my partner, one of the business managers for the law firm. The logo received a 2007 American Graphic Design Award. It is featured in the book 100's Visual Logos and Letterheads.

Holocaust Remembrance Project
Client: Holland+Knight Charitable Foundation, Inc.
Location: Tampa, FL USA

One of a series of logos created for the Holland+Knight Charitable Foundation, this logo gives a graphic identity to the annual Holocaust remembrance essay contest for high school students. The triangle elements are used in a positive manner to take ownership of the negative image of the concentration camp uniform identification patches from the past. The logo appears in the books American Graphic Design & Advertising 25, 100s Visual Logos & Letterheads (UK), Logolicious, 2011 Artist's & Graphic Designer's Market and Logo Design Vol. 3 (Germany). It also was honored with a 2008 American Graphic Design Award.

Learn more about this logo project on bLog-oMotives.

All logo designs © 2015 Jeff Fisher LogoMotives. All rights reserved.

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St. Johns banners finally see the light of day

I've always enjoyed creating designs for businesses, nonprofit organizations and events in my own North Portland neighborhood. Back in early 2002 I designed a series of banners for the volunteer organization Destination St. Johns. The banners were to be displayed on utility poles in the business district of St. Johns, less than a five minute drive from my home studio.

And then nothing happened with the designs and the banners never appeared in public.

In an October 2009 article in the late, great neighborhood newspaper The Sentinel (a past identity design client of mine), Meg Farra, one of the founders of Destination St. Johns, explained, “It was a group we put together to do some projects within St. Johns. For example, we planted native plants in the tree wells through downtown and organized some cleanups before the parade for a few years."

As reported in The Sentinel, "The group decided to create banners for downtown and applied for a grant from the North Portland Trust Fund [the Portland International Raceway noise mitigation funded.] They received $4000 along with support and in-kind donations from many businesses and other groups in St. Johns and North Portland."

I didn't realize that the banners had ever been produced - but instead of adding high-flying color over downtown St. Johns, the banners and all hardware were stored in the basement of the historic Kenton Firehouse.

According to The Sentinel: "...the set of 20 or so vinyl banners were never hung due to political squabbling and the high cost of insurance."

"When the banners were ready to hang, bureaucratic difficulties and a policy change at Portland General Electric entered the game. Partway through negotiations about the banners, PGE changed its insurance requirements. Instead of $1 million, groups now had to carry $2 million in insurance before PGE would allow them to use its poles. PGE also asked Destination St. Johns to coordinate with the St. Johns Boosters, who had a long-standing arrangement with PGE to use certain light poles at Christmastime. A rift developed between some of the leaders involved and for over a year the groups were unable to negotiate a compromise.

"At that point, according to Tom Griffin-Valade of the Office of Neighborhood Involvement, the banners were rolled up and stored in the basement of the Office of Neighborhood Involvement at the Kenton Firehouse. Seven years passed."

The mystery of the missing banners had always intrigued Sentinel publisher Cornelius Swart. With a little detective work, he learned that the banners were in the Kenton Firehouse all along. Swart presented the banners to members of the St. Johns Neighborhood Association in May 2009. At the time of the October 2009 Sentinel article, efforts to hang the banners were being driven by members of the St. Johns Boosters and the St Johns Main Street Coalition, which have representatives from both neighborhood associations, businesses, and individual residents.

I'm not sure what transpired over the past year in regards to insurance issues and neighborhood politics. However, My partner Ed and I recently decided to make a Saturday morning visit to the St. Johns Farmer's Market - and were very surprised to see the banners lining the streets and the farmer's market venue, St. Johns Plaza.

On a recent sunny afternoon, I went to St. Johns to photograph the banners in place (above). I popped into St. Johns Booksellers, the location of my 2007 book signing for Identity Crisis!, to say "hi" to co-owner Nena Rawdah and explain why I was wandering the business district with my camera. She told me that upon learning that the banners were actually going to be installed, she requested a red and yellow one for installation in front of her store (above center).

"I didn't know who was responsible for the design of the banners," added Nena, "but, I'm certainly not surprised."

© 2010 Jeff Fisher LogoMotives.

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DesignCasts and podcasts featuring Jeff Fisher

Designer Jeff Fisher, the Engineer of Creative Identity for Jeff Fisher LogoMotives, is often called upon to share his career experiences - and what others think he knows - through designcasts, webinars, podcasts, teleseminars and other online presentations:

Using Social Media to Boost Your Career - The Dos and The Don'ts, Jeff Fisher and Jean Branan of The Art Institute of California-San Diego's Career Services department, The Career Blueprint Podcast Series, a joint production of The Creative Group and The Art Institutes. (August 2010)

Talk Story Special Edition graphics by RDQLUS Creative

Talk Story with Jeni - HOW Design Conference Special Edition with Steve Gordon Jr., Jeff Fisher and Bryn Mooth, with Jeni Herberger - JeniHerberger.com Sponsored by Neenah Paper. (June 2010)

Using Social Media as a (Free!) Marketing Tool, HOW Magazine; HOW DesignCast (February 2010)

Talk Story with Jeni - and Jeff Fisher, with Jeni Herberger - JeniHerberger.com (February 2010)

How to Survive as a Freelance Designer, HOW Magazine; HOW DesignCast (November 2009) • Survival Resource List from DesignCast

Social Networking with Jeff Fisher, with Thomas James; Escape from Illustration Island (September 2009)

Social Networking with Jeff Fisher, with Thomas James; Illustration Mundo (September 2009)

Planning, Packaging & Promoting Yourself, HOW Magazine; HOW DesignCasts (August 2009)

Tooting Your Own Horn!, RGD Ontario; Design Business Teleseminar (July 2009)

Jeff Fisher Does the LOGO-MOTION, with Donovan Beery and Nate Voss; The Reflex Blue Show (May 2009)

Packaging Yourself, RGD Ontario; Design Business Teleseminar (March 2009)

Brands, Logos & Identity Crisis, with Scott Sheppard and Gene Gable; Inside Digital Design Radio (September 2008)

Creative Experts Audio Interviews: Jeff Fisher, with Doug Farrick; originally for The Designer's Inner Circle - now posted on creativepublic.com (December 2007)

Marketing Through Blogs and Forums, with Joel Welsh; StartupNation (November 2006)

© 2010 Jeff Fisher LogoMotives

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Toot! Toot!*: New edition of 'Type Rules!' includes identity of design firm Jeff Fisher LogoMotives

The identity for Portland design firm Jeff Fisher LogoMotives is one of the new typographic images illustrating the recently released third edition of the book Type Rules!: The Designer's Guide to Professional Typography, by educator and expert Ilene Strizver of The Type Studio. The volume was published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Type Rules! is a practical guide to understanding type and how to use it effectively. It is intended for beginners and advanced professionals alike, and covers a broad range of topics. The new edition includes:

• New information on OpenType, font management utilities, font web sites, and interactive typography.
• An expanded history of type and an updated glossary of key terms.
• Exercises throughout to help reinforce the concepts presented in the book.
• A wealth of tried-and-true as well as recently developed type tips.
• More in-depth type issues, including scaling logos.

The featured logo was selected after author Strizver made use of her Twitter account @TheTypeStudio to request "type-centric images and design" examples for the new edition of her book. Fisher contacted Strizver, provided a link to a Flickr gallery of his identity work, and the author selected the identity representing the logo design firm.

The Jeff Fisher LogoMotives identity also appears in Letterhead and Logo Design 5, American Corporate Identity/14, New Logo & Trademark Design (Japan), the 1998 PRINT Regional Design Annual, The New Big Book of Logos, PRINT’s Best Logos & Symbols 6, Logo Design for Small Business 2, The Big Book of Business Cards, Logos from North to South America (Spain), New Logo & Trademark Collection (Japan), and The Savvy Designer’s Guide to Success.

Fisher, a 30+ year design industry veteran, is the author of Identity Crisis!: 50 redesigns that transformed stale identities into successful brands and The Savvy Designer's Guide to Success: Ideas and tactics for a killer career. He is currently writing the book Logo Type: 200 Best Typographic Logos from Around the World Explained, about typography in identity design, with a scheduled 2011 release.

The designer has received over 600 design awards and his work has been published in more than 140 books on identity design, self-promotion and the marketing of small businesses.

More information about Jeff Fisher, and his design and writing efforts, may be found on the Jeff Fisher LogoMotives blogfolio.

(* If I don’t "toot!" my own horn, no one else will.)

© 2010 Jeff Fisher LogoMotives

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Logodotes: Al Bauer Advertising

[Over the 30+ years I've worked professionally as a designer, interesting side stories have come up about my identity designs. This is one of an ongoing series of "Logodotes" - anecdotes about my logo designs.]

In 1980, my first year out of college, ad agency owner Al Bauer asked me to design a logo to identify his firm. Bauer had been toying with the idea of using an abstract image to represent the company. In fact, he'd even considered making use of an abstract painting created by his daughter, artist Marlene Bauer. The pre-digital printing expense of reproducing a four-color image led to the client quickly changing his mind about the possibility.

The initial concept (above left) evolved out of my interest in the minimalist logo imagery I studied in school during the 1970's. Many logos of the time were simple, somewhat heavy, and involved geometric forms. The client almost immediately selected this particular design. I was told that he appreciated its abstract representation of how advertising was often a very orderly discipline - until something went completely out of whack.

A couple of weeks later an excited Bauer called me, having just realized the design was in actuality very abstract lower-case a and b letterforms (visually defined above right).

© 2010 Jeff Fisher LogoMotives

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'The Art of Self Promotion' book - a valuable marketing tool for any creative professional

Over the past 15 years, my work, writings and comments have appeared in nearly 140 books. I try to keep track of such things; making others aware of great design and business resources in the process. However, once in while I will come across published surprises in bookstores, online or even through the use of the Google book search tool.

It was through a Google book search, a couple of months ago, that I first became aware of my inclusion in the book The Art of Self Promotion, written by marketing expert Ilise Benun. I had not previously seen or heard about the book at all.

Benun and I do have a history of using each other as a source in books and articles, and speaking at the same conferences. She used me as a resource in her books Self Promotion Online and The Designer's Guide To Marketing And Pricing (written with mutual friend Peleg Top), in the HOW Magazine article eSelf Promotion, and in her Art of Self Promotion newsletter. Benun provided valuable information for my first book, The Savvy Designer's Guide to Success (now available as a PDF on CD).

The two of us have been able to keep in touch over the years through multiple invitations to speak at the annual HOW Design Conference. I was also honored to make a presentation at the first Creative Freelancer Conference, an event coordinated by HOW Magazine and Benun's own firm, Marketing Mentor.

It was a real pleasure to see Benun at the recent How Design Conference in Denver. Seeing each other also gave me an opportunity to ask about the book The Art of Self Promotion.

It turns out that the book is a compilation of past articles from The Art of Self Promotion newsletter, published by Benun's own Marketing Mentor Press. The Art of Self Promotion is packed with valuable self promotion suggestions and examples. My own inclusion is in regards to the use of my "Toot! Toot!" press releases in marketing my design and writing efforts.

Benun was kind enough to give me a copy of the book when we last met. I would strongly recommend that all creative professionals get themselves a copy of The Art of Self Promotion - a great tutorial in marketing and promotion tactics.

© 2010 Jeff Fisher LogoMotives.

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Non-Profit Logos

(Clockwise from upper left)

Rob Buckmaster Fund
Client: Rob Buckmaster Fund/Equity Foundation
Location: Portland, OR USA

This logo was created in honor of an actor friend who died of AIDS and a scholarship fund was established in his name. I've always been very happy with the comedy/drama mask image within the identity - and kind of frustrated with the heart/letterspacing of the text elements. The logo appears in the books American Corporate Identity '99 (Hearst Book International, USA, 1998) and The New Big Book of Logos (HBI, USA, 2000) and Paper, Harper Design, USA, 2003).

Peninsula Clean Team
Client: Peninsula Clean Team
Location: Portland, OR USA

This logo for a neighborhood clean-up organization needed to appeal to children and adults. It appears in the books The New Big Book of Logos (HBI, USA, 2000), The New Big Book of Logos (Paper, Harper Design, USA, 2003), Logos from North to South America (Index Book, Spain, 2005), Logos Café (Page One, Singapore, 2005) and Logos from North to South America (Paper-mini, Index Book, Spain, 2005).

Esther's Pantry
Client: Esther's Pantry
Location: Portland, OR USA

A graphic representation of my own great-grandmother gave the Esther's Pantry logo its personality. The image appears in the PRINT Regional Design Annual.

Hospice of Humboldt
Client: Hospice of Humboldt
Location: Eureka, CA USA

This identity represents an in-home hospice care organization in the Humboldt region of Northern California. The logo design won a Bronze in the Summit International Creative Awards. It appears in The New Big Book of Logos (HBI, USA, 2000), The Big Book of Designs for Letterheads and Websites (HBI, USA, 2001), The New Big Book of Logos (Paper, Harper Design, USA, 2003), Logos from North to South America (Index Book, Spain, 2005), Logos Café (Page One, Singapore, 2005) and Logos from North to South America (Paper-mini, Index Book, Spain, 2005).

All logo designs © 2015 Jeff Fisher LogoMotives. All rights reserved.

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