How do you brand yourself?

So it should be said, I am not the musical member of our group. My entire life that has always been a huge weakness of mine, and I accepted that would most likely never change. Also, it should be noted that I am not the type to perform in front of others. Once a group gets larger than four or five people, I get nervous and clam up. So the fact that I'm participating in this crazy adventure will be a definite test of what I'm capable of. I'm the artistic one. I'll fill in for other areas, but by and large my role is that of the artist.

The first thing I wanted to do with this group, was develop a type of brand. You see that will all successful companies and corporations, they have a brand or style that makes everyone think of them. Their brand unifies them, identifies them, makes them official. The first act of branding us I chose to take, was developing a logo. Like with most things, every idea I and the others could come up with were overly complicated. Characters singing, or biting hearts. We wanted to do something with the card symbols, but nothing seemed to work. I like logos that are simple lines and shapes, but that also have meaning. So I started with a tambourine, a simple shape, and worked from there.

Next I added strings, to symbolize the harpist, and tried to think of a way to incorporate our cards idea. Which is when I decided to put the symbols along the edge. I ended up with the design on the bottom right, but that seemed too static, too boring. So I just started drawing squiggly lines and tried to see how I could change the fundamental style of the logo. I liked where it was going, but it still seemed too random. Janelle recommended having the apple hang from the top (to symbolize women) and then commented that it was starting to look like the treble clef. That gave another direction to head towards, and when pepper added her two cents I came up with this.

I made the lines as graceful as possible, and simplified the elements down to the minimum. I reduced the strings to three to represent the three of us, and this is what we have. I still have to refine it, and get rid of a few of the more rough edges. I was surprisingly happy with the way that it turned out, and it's a definite start to the process of branding Aoide.

Aspen