A fun little personal logo

Like many kids, I remember drawing out the letters of my name in interesting ways in the margin of my notebook or on random scrap paper. I always liked the symmetry of the W and M in “William”, and how the two letters could continuously flow into one another. The N in “Norris” had a similar shape, and so I would doodle my initials in different geometric designs, sometimes 3-dimensional or with celtic knots.

I was really into baseball as a kid, and so I really enjoyed the way some teams would overlay their city initials as their team logo. The most famous, of course, being the stacked “NY” for the New York Yankees (which apparently came from a Tiffany-designed NYPD medal), but also “SD” for the San Diego Padres, and “LA” for the Los Angeles Dodgers.

In more recent years, I’ve seen a few of these types of logos that really stood out. Probably the most memorable for me is Terry Mun’s “TM” logo using the negative space for the M. Terry also does some really tasteful animations with his logo and the rest of his site, but even the static logo is quite something.

I had also recently rediscovered some of Andy Bell’s CSS work (notably his method for managing flow), and was struck by the simplicity of his triangular “A” logo on his website. It certainly fits with the minimalist aesthetic of the rest of his site, and it inspired me to start doodling again.

I started with the same equilateral triangle, notched on one side using a second triangle one-third the base size. I added the notch on the top to form a “V”, then created a second one and combined them to form a “W”. Finally, I separated the left arm of the “W” to allow it to also be read as a slanted “N”.

I ended up with something that is most certainly inspired by Andy’s logo, but with some additional character I really like for combining the W and N. The final result also reminds me a bit of the Wonder Woman logo, which was not intentional but I’m kind of okay with. I certainly don’t need a personal logo, and it’s somewhat of a vanity project, but it was certainly fun to design and build.