| It's a year and a half since I moved to Arrowtown and I still had not updated my business cards. I liked my old ones and still have plenty, but almost all my contacts have changed from the old cards. About time I changed them up. |  A brooch I made on commission for a friend. The photo I took of it made a nice background for my old biz cards. |
I sort of already have a logo. Must be about 12 years ago now I had Regal Castings jewellery supply company make me a hallmark stamp. For this I needed something unique, but it needed to be simple, so that it could be milled out of hard tool steel in tiny profile. I made this little design below out of my initials. I made the original using the Microsoft Paint program.
 My initials are A.C.T. I put them together in this little design to make a hallmark stamp. On the stamp, it's in reverse to come out the right way around on the jewellery. |  The inside of the ring is curved so doesn't take the whole ACT stamp. I've also marked it with my 925 stamp, which stands for sterling silver - 925 parts silver, 75 parts copper. |
I reckoned I could do better than that logo now. Not me personally of course, I'm a jeweller, not a graphic designer.
I engaged Finnbar Glover, one of my many creative cousins, who recently graduated from Otago Polytech's Communications Design degree to do the job. He spent a bit of time reworking the ACT logo. That stamp cost me over $400 to have made so I'm not changing it in a hurry. The plan was to incorporate it into a new design, but when Finn showed me the cool ideas he had for the anvil logo, the ACT logo just distracted from the effect so it got turfed off and removed to the back of the business cards.
I had searched up a bunch of images online of the sort of look I was after to show Finn and tried my best to describe it. Finn listened hard and came back with some ideas showing exactly the sort of look I wanted. This one went through a few little changes but is very much like one of the initial designs. What a good listener.
I engaged Finnbar Glover, one of my many creative cousins, who recently graduated from Otago Polytech's Communications Design degree to do the job. He spent a bit of time reworking the ACT logo. That stamp cost me over $400 to have made so I'm not changing it in a hurry. The plan was to incorporate it into a new design, but when Finn showed me the cool ideas he had for the anvil logo, the ACT logo just distracted from the effect so it got turfed off and removed to the back of the business cards.
I had searched up a bunch of images online of the sort of look I was after to show Finn and tried my best to describe it. Finn listened hard and came back with some ideas showing exactly the sort of look I wanted. This one went through a few little changes but is very much like one of the initial designs. What a good listener.
The big heavy looking shape is an anvil. I wanted an anvil because it's relevant both to my arts practice and to my weightlifting.
I love metalwork, and the thing I love the best is forging. I learnt how to forge steel and iron in the sculpture department at Art School, using a coke-fired forge, an anvil, hammers and tongs. I love the beauty of the process, the fire, the rhythm, and the feel of shaping hard metal blow by blow. It's hot, heavy, dirty work and I would be overjoyed to do it all day.
For various reasons I ended up being a jeweller rather than a blacksmith. I still forge silver, using hammers and an anvil, but everything's a bit smaller and not quite so exciting. In the photo below is one of my anvils. It's a bit beaten up, but it serves my purposes well. My good friend and jewellery artist Brendon Jaine gave it to me.
I love metalwork, and the thing I love the best is forging. I learnt how to forge steel and iron in the sculpture department at Art School, using a coke-fired forge, an anvil, hammers and tongs. I love the beauty of the process, the fire, the rhythm, and the feel of shaping hard metal blow by blow. It's hot, heavy, dirty work and I would be overjoyed to do it all day.
For various reasons I ended up being a jeweller rather than a blacksmith. I still forge silver, using hammers and an anvil, but everything's a bit smaller and not quite so exciting. In the photo below is one of my anvils. It's a bit beaten up, but it serves my purposes well. My good friend and jewellery artist Brendon Jaine gave it to me.
One of my jewellery-sized anvils and the two hammers used in the logo, the ball-pein hammer and the watchmaker's hammer.
As for my strength training, my garage gym is already called "The Forge". The hot, heavy, dirty work of getting strong is like both being the blacksmith and being the metal in a forge. I hammer my body, rep by rep and week by week in all seasons, slowly getting into the shape I need to be to do what I want to do. This analogy has not escaped other people. CrossFit.com's tagline is "Forging Elite Fitness". Mine isn't the only gym that references the art of the blacksmith in it's name either.
One of the hammers crossing the anvil in the logo is a ball-pein hammer. It's a robust, all purpose hammer with one flat and one rounded face. It's used to bash stuff into shape in many fields of craftsmanship. The finer hammer will be recognised by jewellers as a watchmaker's hammer. They come in different sizes. Mine is actually quite big for this sort of hammer. The watchmaker's hammer is for precision work, such as riveting and forging delicate wee pieces of precious metal.
The line in between the words is a barbell, the primary tool of an Olympic Lifter, a CrossFitter and a Powerlifter. The barbell is a tool I use to forge this body to make it as strong as possible.
One of the hammers crossing the anvil in the logo is a ball-pein hammer. It's a robust, all purpose hammer with one flat and one rounded face. It's used to bash stuff into shape in many fields of craftsmanship. The finer hammer will be recognised by jewellers as a watchmaker's hammer. They come in different sizes. Mine is actually quite big for this sort of hammer. The watchmaker's hammer is for precision work, such as riveting and forging delicate wee pieces of precious metal.
The line in between the words is a barbell, the primary tool of an Olympic Lifter, a CrossFitter and a Powerlifter. The barbell is a tool I use to forge this body to make it as strong as possible.
 |  |
Here's the finished cards! It actually didn't take much (well not from me, Finn put in plenty of work) to get the logo right, but it wasn't ready for printing yet. Figuring out exactly what information I wanted, deciding on a font, and then balancing out the possibilities and the costs of what sort of printing on what sort of paper took a whole lot more mental energy.
I actually wanted silver foil printed onto black card, but this was going to be very expensive to print, if possible at all. Because of the nature of the silver foil, apparently cards can only be printed on one side if this technique is used. The metallic grey card is very 'me' though, and I'm happy with it.
On the bottom right of the back the card you can see the old A C T logo in slightly sleeker form than I made it in Paint back in the way back when. As this is still hallmarked on my jewellery I'm holding onto it and want it on my cards. You might notice, annact.com has ACT in it, and so does my Instagram handle, act_ion.
I actually wanted silver foil printed onto black card, but this was going to be very expensive to print, if possible at all. Because of the nature of the silver foil, apparently cards can only be printed on one side if this technique is used. The metallic grey card is very 'me' though, and I'm happy with it.
On the bottom right of the back the card you can see the old A C T logo in slightly sleeker form than I made it in Paint back in the way back when. As this is still hallmarked on my jewellery I'm holding onto it and want it on my cards. You might notice, annact.com has ACT in it, and so does my Instagram handle, act_ion.
How To Get as Awesome a Logo as Mine
Finnbar Glover, the designer can be found at www.finnbar-glover-design.com. He can make you an awesome logo too.
To see and even have a go at some real blacksmithing yourself head on down to Dunedin to the Gasworks Forge.
You can catch Brendon Jaine, buy his wonderful glass jewellery, and have a good yarn at the Queenstown Markets every Saturday in downtown Queenstown.
If you love tools like hammers, get onto the Regal Castings website and have a drool. Just don't use your precision-crafted jeweller's tools to try to make big sculptures. you'll wreck them. I learnt that the hard way.
To see and even have a go at some real blacksmithing yourself head on down to Dunedin to the Gasworks Forge.
You can catch Brendon Jaine, buy his wonderful glass jewellery, and have a good yarn at the Queenstown Markets every Saturday in downtown Queenstown.
If you love tools like hammers, get onto the Regal Castings website and have a drool. Just don't use your precision-crafted jeweller's tools to try to make big sculptures. you'll wreck them. I learnt that the hard way.
RSS Feed
