Menu
Ever since I started using the current logo for my brand, I’ve had lots of positive comments about it.
What has also become apparent is how many people don’t realise the level of finer detail in the logo until they get a chance to look closer (if you haven’t already, then you might like to do that first – you’ll find a larger version at the bottom of this page)
So I thought it’d be interesting to share the story of the logo, how it came to be, what it all means, and the extremely talented person who created the final version for me.
Back in 2013 I started wearing a 3-piece suit and bow-tie for my professional speaker engagements. It became an established part of my overall brand – in any appearances, I was always in the 3-piece.
Fast forward a few years, and I was refreshing my branding, gathering everything together under the one brand. Prior to that I had several different brands for different aspects of what I offered, and frankly it confused the heck out of me, let alone anyone else trying to figure out what I did!
So a unified brand was called for, bringing everything under the one umbrella.
And part of that required a logo.
I had already decided to use my name for my company name – hey, if that approach was good enough for the likes of Derren Brown, Paul Daniels, Tony Robbins, Paul McKenna, et al, then it’s good enough for me. So it was that on 11th December 2018 my company Be Your Change Ltd (founded 25th June 2015) was officially renamed Keith Blakemore-Noble Ltd (the brand “Be Your Change” still survives as my publishing name, as it had already published a coupe of books by then so it made sense).
So when it came to the logo, it made sense to have something which was related directly to me as the brand.
A friend of mine (David Beach of “Content Creation by Dave“) suggested that something around the 3-piece and bow-tie would be a good place to start, as that was already becoming well-recognised as being “me”. From this, we came up with the very first concept, which you can see here. Pretty plain, but it showed some promise.
It was still very generic, and needed to be made more “me”.
At this point, I’d been exploring “word clouds”, and wondered if we could use word to make up the logo.
Which words, was the question?
So I asked selected friends, clients, and other trusted people to tell me what words they associated with me and we explored using those to create the logo. To add a little variety, we “weighted” the words so that the ones which people had given us most were larger.
David created three variants which you can see below.
The idea was taking shape, but still wasn’t quite right. I experimented with a few additions.
First, I added 6 words to highlight the different aspects of what I do (Coach, Speak, Author, Entertainer, Trainer, Show Host – the latter originally being Radio Host, I evolved it to Show Host later after the logo was finalised), and I used a word-cloud generator to have the different words at different angles, a little more jumbled. Finally, I loved the idea of having buttons in the logo – it looked better – and I settled on my initials as the 3 buttons because, well, why not?
The result is the 4th one you can see below.
It showed promise, but something still wasn’t right.
It was round about that time that I was introduced to the highly talented Sammie Edgar of Journey Of Words. If you have not come across Sammie, then seriously, go and check her out, she is amazing.
From her studio in South Devon, surrounded by the ever-changing countryside, she paints with vibrant colours and intertwining words, capturing emotions in different shapes and forms. She brings your thoughts and memories to life with unique, bespoke artwork covering every subject imaginable. As she rightly puts it, if a picture can paint a thousand words, surely a thousand words can paint a picture too.
She is regularly commissioned to create all manner of fantastic pieces of art, for companies and individuals, and I fell in love her style of art immediately.
What’s more, and it quickly became obvious that there was only one person whose style and technique could make it work – Sammie.
I initially contacted Sammie, unsure of whether it would be a commission she’d want to work on, sizes, what the costs would be – petty much everything.
I needn’t have worried!
Sammie was very friendly, helpful, and professional throughout our entire project.
We had some chats to explore options, to refine my idea, to agree upon what would go into it, as well as things like the size and how it would be delivered.
After that, I left Sammie to work her magic. And work her magic she did! I love the detail she put into it, the way the words express what me, my business, and my services are all about.
Sammie was a delight to work with, and her work really stands out and in turn helps me and my brand to stand out.
My logo still gets very favourable comments from people who see it for the first time.
And I particularly love the reaction when people finally realise there is more to the logo and they look closer and see the incredibly detail!
The finished logo works beautifully on its own (when it’s small, it looks just like a good silhouette, and when it is larger, the words start to come though – which just goes to show that there is always more to see, the deeper and closer we examine anything!)
I wanted to create another version with my name / company name, to tie them together. In the end, I used a good handwritten-style font for my name, and just popped the logo to the side, and it works – sometimes it’s the simplest ideas which are the best!
In case you were wondering, I used a font rather than my own signature for a couple of reasons. First, it’s never a particularly good idea to use one’s true signature, that just makes life easier for those seeking to commit identity fraud for example. And secondly (and to be fair the bigger reason here), my actual signature is not exactly legible, so the name would be impossible to read!
You can see the finished logo in all its glory below, hopefully the detail shines through.
And you can see the logo with signature (the “full logo” I guess you’d call it) at the top of this post and at the top of every page on this site.
I’m really happy with it – I think it represents me, my brand, my values and ethos very well.
Now that you know the story of the logo, what do you think?
