Logo Design, but with Felt!

Just for fun, I thought you might like to see some layers to the process of creating my logo! I’ll start by saying that logo design is not my expertise, but I do think that I’ve landed on something that I like. It’s simple, translates well to all the social media icons, and generally does what I need it to do.

Deciding on a Logo

The first step was easily the most time-consuming: Brainstorming a logo out of thin air. I knew I wanted to incorporate rain in the design, that was a given. My earliest design actually was just a rain cloud with long raindrops, and the logo underneath. I liked it (and would have definitely reshaped the cloud) but decided it just didn’t convey the easy-to-read impact that I wanted to have.

That took me down the path that eventually led to the final design. Understanding how I was planning to use my logo was the most important (and probably obvious) step. Some of the items I intend on making in the future will include original packaging. Because of this, I wanted a way to incorporate the logo in a fun, non-intrusive, and more decorative way. I decided to use the raindrop as a focal point and went from there, ultimately leading to where I am now.

Felt Time!

Now, I wasn’t entirely sure if I was going to post this process or not, so I admittedly didn’t take pictures from the start. To catch you up to where I’m at below: I printed the outline onto printer paper and cut out the different elements (while regretting not using the Cricut because I thought it would be “too much effort”), chose my felt colors and cut out the shapes accordingly, and pinned the raindrops onto the background color.

See? You didn’t miss much. Here I’ve pinned back the parts of the design that weren’t actively being sewn to have less bulk in-hand. This made stitching the edges in the center so much easier. I used a blanket stitch around all the components to secure them in place, then a decorative top stitch to outline everything in matching colors.

Lettering

For the next step, I reluctantly buckled and pull out The Cricut. This was purely because I didn’t want to waste felt by accidentally snipping a part of the letter off. Unfortunately for me, I unknowingly used an excessively dull needle, and the best result I got was a mere outline of the cuts. I’m honestly fortunate that it didn’t ruin the felt despite it all, because I didn’t have a backup piece. Now slightly frustrated, I had to cut out the letters by hand, which was I was hoping to avoid. As a result, I did sadly snip a few corners off, but I had a plan to fix them later.

Alternating between aligning the letters to the paper template and sewing them in place, I finished this step slowly but surely. Now was time to address my “cutting mistake”. I took a felting needle and some leftover scraps of dark blue felt to fill in the missing portions.

Finishing Touches

As an afterthought, I chose to outline the raindrops in a shiny silver thread because I wanted to make them stand out. Next, I took a 12″ round piece of wood and drilled a small hole in the back for mounting. I trimmed any overlapping edges of the design to make for a perfect fit. Now it was time to glue it in place! I went with my staple Tacky Glue to get the job done. If you plan on doing a project like this for yourself, remember not to go overboard with the glue, otherwise it will start seeping through your felt! Take a small paper towel or paint brush to apply the glue in a thin, even layer to prevent this from happening.

Time for the home stretch: sewing on the border edge. No pattern required, I just cut strips of felt in corresponding colors that were the thickness of the board. The strips were glued in place and let dry for a while before starting to sew. I did this so I would be able to pull the thread tight for a clean seam without causing the felt to move.

Voila! Here’s the result of my efforts:

So I was done now, right?

Sadly no. You see, I’m a creative perfectionist, and I stared at the design in disappointment, realizing that I didn’t make it exactly as I intended. This of course bothered me. I took pictures of the project, transferred them to Photoshop, and started manipulating the design to look more like the original.

I have both a love/hate relationship with what I’ve produced. While it now looks more like my initial logo design, it looks (much) less like it was made by hand in felt. It just looks like it’s made of felt now. Which, could be better or worse, depending on how you look at it. Either way, I decided for most uses, to nix the text for easier viewing on devices. Additionally, I had wanted to showcase the felt in the logo, but after processing it in different ways on the web, I chose to make it more subtle. I wound up with a hybrid version of my original digital design, married with the one made it felt, so at least it wasn’t all in vain. Maybe only a little bit. 🙃

Ahhh, gotta love the creative process.

So there you have it. A glimpse of my scattered creative process! I hope you’ve enjoyed the read this time around. Stay tuned for my next post, it will be my first felt food item, and I want to give it away free to test how the download link and process goes.

I’ll see you soon!

❤ Daveanna