I finished reading Wally Ollins ‘Brand Handbook’ this morning and decided it was time to review my logo. With a deft tweak of a drop down box in Photoshop CS4 I managed to lose two font-weights in a shake of a lambs tail. A couple of years ago I did a redesign of my logo and found myself what I felt was a great alternative to a standard Helvetica font. Paralucent is what its called, and it seemed a more contemporary take on the old swiss stalwart. The version I bought from myfonts.com has been the base of my various marketing materials ever since.

I don’t consider myself a designer of course, although the boundary is blurring, and I do all my own website design and development because I have a background as a web geek and like to keep my hand in from time to time. I kind of feel that the ‘microstock revolution’ has been partly about designers doing more and more of their own photography, or just sourcing it more and more cheaply… so whats source for the goose is source for the gander as it were. Why can’t I eat a bit into the designers profits and roll my own.

Of course, the best reason not to go down this route is that unless you are a good designer yourself, you are better up leaving such things to the professionals. Right now though, I’m into serious cost control so I can’t really afford to hire a designer at the level I’d like to hand over my valuable branding to.

I can dream though. If I had the resources, then I would be engaging MadeThought to give my identity and collateral a full detox, makeover, and radical surgery. There is a lot of beauty in their website, from their delicious typography to the ultra-sophistication of their command of print media and packaging. I’d also like to know who the photographer is who has shot all their packshots, because it is gorgeous work. If I find out who this is, I’ll have to put a hat on so I can doff it to her/him. Or at least genuflect with a quick “I’m not worthy”.

Over the years, there must have been some kind of psychic connection between the genius of MadeThought and my own humble wrasslings with typography because to my surprise, after returning to their site this morning I discovered that one of the lovely fonts they chose for a product was… none other than Paralucent Extra Light, the very font I had slimmed down to this morning. Synchronicity? Karma? Something like, I expect.

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