Before designing a logo, it’s nice to have some friends to riff with, friends who will provide honest feedback and guidance. I’m lucky because I have exactly two friends: Hollie and Megan! Together we were able to come up with a logo we are super proud of.
“It looks very arcane and magical.”
Rocco Tripaldi, on the Polyphonic Theatre Ensemble logo
“It looks like something you’d find carved into an old stone.”
Megan Tripaldi, on the Polyphonic Theatre Ensemble logo
Bill.jpg
It all started with a google image search for “hag or maiden”. You know, the iconic drawing were you can see either a woman in fancy dress looking off into the distance, or a woman with a large nose and a severe frown bowing her head solemnly. Evelyn’s Tavern in South Portland Maine had this on their sign for years ( they may still have it ).
We wanted something like that, an optical illusion with different intertwined images. Instead, we stumbled on the mysterious bill.jpg.
This visage of horror appeared near the top of our image search, and we all fell madly in love with it. It came from Jaclyn Cherie’s blog, The Nephilim Rising. Cherie is described as such: “She wears many hats as a Creatrix, Author, Word Alchemist, Seer, Witch, Intersectional Feminist, Luciferian, Torchbearer, Animist and Wild Woman.” Perfect!
From sketch to screen
We sought to recreate something like it, something that had a happy face on the left, a sad face on the right, and a wild rage face in the center.
We made a bunch of sketches. I wish I had saved more of the early drafts because there were some interesting marks, but the only one that I was able to salvage from the trash was the favorite. As you can see, we abandoned the wild rage face for a more calm, focused face. We ended up with a happy fool, a sad king and a ruling queen.
Next, I tried to make a digitized vector image based on that sketch. Here are a few early attempts. They looked pretty cool, but they didn’t go well with our text: “Polyphonic Theatre Ensemble” written in the Kopius typeface.
Megan’s suggestion was to make the lines more precise. It was a good suggestion! I also used elements from the Kopius typeface in the final design. If you look closely at the noses and the dividing lines, you’ll see pieces of letters! The last step was to splash on some color. We went with our usual muted cyan, yellow, and magenta: the colors of the pansexual flag, which we wave proudly at this ensemble.
I hope you enjoyed the story of our logo!
