Here it is!

 

 

 

 

 

 

My first draft was almost exactly what I wanted, but it needed a few tweaks.

The first piece of the logo that I created was the film strips.  It is composed of many rectangles that I aligned with the help of the ruler tool.  I duplicated the first film strip by using “Option + Drag,” and then it was time to create the letters.

The letters are “TKR,” and they stand for “Tyler Kee Reviews.”  That is the theme of my blog, so I found the acronym fitting.  Making the letters was very difficult for me because I didn’t want to simply use Illustrator’s text tool and pick a font.  I wanted to make my own letters with the shape tools, so that is what I did.  The “T” was the easiest.  I just made two connecting rectangles to form a “T.”  The “K” was more difficult.  First, I made a vertical rectangle for the leftmost side of the “K.”  Then, I used the line tool with black fill and stroke to draw two lines for each leg, and closed the two lines at the tip with a rectangle.  Lastly, I filled the the legs in with the brush tool.  The “R” was the most challenging of all.  Of course, I started with the vertical rectangle on the leftmost side of the “R,” and proceeded to the hard part (for me).  I had to use the pen tool to create the arc of the “R,” and this took several attempts.  It took a lot of painting to satisfy spots that needed to be smoothed out or filled.  Then, just like the legs of the “K,” I used the line and rectangle tool to make the leg of the “R.”  The midsection where the leg sprouts off of required a lot of work to create that shape, but it worked out in the end.

One of my group members suggested that I filled the unused space in the “R” with a fast forward symbol, and I loved that idea!  I simply created two triangles and positioned them together inside of the “R,”  and I think that it adds some detail that the logo was missing.

Originally, the logo itself was too small in relation to the background, so I transferred it to a 500×500 pixel artboard and placed a blue circle behind it.  I like the look of a circular logo instead of a rectangle one, so I stuck with it.

I am very happy with this logo.  It is quite simple, but a logo for a movie review blog doesn’t need to be very complicated.  It should look professional and memorable, and I think that I achieved that look.

My logo is a good start, but it needs some work.

 

 

 

 

My initial idea for the logo was to have the film strips surrounding “Tyler Kee Movie Reviews,” but that was too much text and I did not want to restrain myself to strictly film reviews.  I am open to possibly writing music reviews in the future, so it was important to leave it at “reviews.”  Some might say that the film strips are putting me in a box for film, but that is simply the focus.  I do not want to add a music note, for example, because an album review would be a rarity.  Finally, through the brainstorming process, I arrived at the “TKR” idea.  The acronym stands for “Tyler Kee Reviews,” without cluttering the logo with an abundance of text.  It is nice and simple, but it does not really “pop” as a logo.  I need to work on better shapes for the letters to make them more unique and visually pleasing.  Parts of some of the letters appear to be wider than others, but they should look clean and uniform.  I might try to make a variety of different logos to find the best one for my blog.

To create the logo, I used the pen, line, rectangle, and paintbrush tools.  It was quite difficult for me to create some of these letters, specifically the “R,” but I got the hang of it as I progressed.  I added a second layer to serve as the background and made it blue.  I think that the black and blue look good together, but I might add or change some of the colors to add more variety.  The film reels are made up of several rectangles, and the ruler aided a bunch in their creation.

I drew inspiration from most movie blogs, such as these: Jason’s Movie Blog and Chris Stuckmann. Neither of these really have a logo that stands out, so I want to make mine really pop.  A lot of movie blogs usually have their name followed by “reviews” or some sort of play on words. After evaluating this, I should try to be more original and come up with something that is not very common within this certain community.

 

“TKR” stands for “Tyler Kee Reviews,” but I am still brainstorming a wittier title for a possible blog or brand of mine for the future.  I like the look of the letters down the middle with surrounding film.