• Home
  • BIG bio
  • Why I Do Sponsored Posts
  • BIG Media Page
BIG FAMILY little income - Raising a family on little more than laughs
  • BIG recipes
  • BIG on Kiva
  • BIG lap
  • BIG fun
  • BIG school
  • BIG Christmas
BIG blogAugust 4, 2016August 5, 2016

The Story Behind My New Logo

by Bruce Devereaux

13898619_10208540431822565_1641176361_o.png

A cool thing with my logo font is it’s a messy, blotchy typewriter one, which I think rather cooly combines both the fact my blog is about writing and I’m shit at things like spelling and grammar. Even the auto-correct functions seem to work against me. Although, to be fair to myself, I do most of my writing late at night when I’m tired and usually go back in the following day to fix things up a bit.

I have new respect for logos.

I remember when the Commonwealth Bank came out with their ‘Sao with vegemite’ logo in 1991 my buddies and I had a chuckle and thought we could do better, but I’m ready to take that back now.

The fact is, I’ve been trying to work out a logo of some sort for my blog for sooooo long. All I could think of, whenever I decided to work on it, was a lot of stick figures – and I mean a lot of them.

All attempts at coming up with something myself have ended in beer. I am totally useless at computers and, except for an apparent flare for embarrassing myself in anecdotal stories, have not a single artistic bone in my body. Even my stick figures are crappy.

Wanting this pretty bad though, I even occasionally made inroads into those logo sites which kept popping up in my Facebook feed, and recently approached a designer for a quote.

You might be wondering why I want a logo in the first place. The answer is simple – I’m needy.

I’ve been working my blog for nearly six years – since Fathers Day in 2010 – and it’s a been a lot of effort for, if I’m completely honest, not much financial return. Sure, I get the occasional sponsored posts now, which I genuinely enjoy because it’s fun to get a topic to write about, and they’re super super awesome for meeting the skyrocketing blogging bills, but this blog is more a labour of love. I just like to write my little stories and interact with everyone who ‘gets me’ and likes to snicker at the absurdity of raising kids and feels a bit the same way about parenting and relationships and life and love. Outside of my family, my blog is the bestest, most rewarding thing I’ve ever done.

And I really have to insist on saying thank you to you for that. I have not doubt it wouldn’t be as much fun writing if no one thought it was worth reading our exploits.

So when last weekend, finally, with a lot of help last weekend from Mikayla, I managed to etch out a logo I love, you can imagine how excited I was.

Strictly speaking, and we don’t use this term around here, Miki is Master24 and Miss21’s wonderful stepsister, from their mother’s second marriage. I’ve got to say, that Miki even likes to come and stay with us occasionally is a matter of great joy to me. She’s lovely and intelligent and great company. Plus, she understands we’re family.

And, as it turns out, the type of family who’s good to have around, because she’s also hell good at design and computers and design programs.

Something I learned when she came up with Master24’s great logo for his Goof Review site, where he reviews tabletop games – his guilty pleasure.

cropped-G20

For my logo I decided it had to be simple. I didn’t want Big Family Little Income written in it. Plus it had to be me – personal somehow. Because the blog isn’t a business with products and shelf space in supermarkets. It’s just me writing stories.

A big thing was that I wanted something I could use as a watermark on photos. Plus, I wanted something to slap onto the side of our bus (assuming we can find the right one in time – that’s a whole other post) for our trip around Australia next year.

So last Friday night I just sat there at our dinning table beside Miki, answering her questions and looking at her screen and saying no a lot and yes a bit and getting super excited when we hit upon this. The ‘big family’ bit are capitals and the ‘little income’ bit are lower case, playing off a bit on the big and little motif. I like it.

At one point, Miki playfully put a handlebar moustache under BFLI lettering.

“That’s it!” I said. “I love it.”

She gave me a little sidewards look.

“But…you don’t have a moustache,” she pointed out.

I reached up to make sure.

“Oh, yeah,” I said, remembering in fact I’ve only ever had something resembling a moustache once, and only for Movember.

From there we hit upon my glasses as an actual thing still on my face and it all just flew on from there. Well, we briefly considered my chins, bung eye and huge nose, but the glasses seemed to make more sense.

We added my favourite colour and kept ‘Big Family Little Income’ reduced to four letters, the ‘i’ of which reminds me of Maggie Simpson.

Seriously. Go look. I’ll wait here.

Then there’s the glasses work because the blog is about reading something – it seriously just sings for me.

So there you go. Hopefully, I can figure out how to use it effectively and you’ll see my logo more often. Hopefully.

But no promises.

As stated, except for stories full of spelling and grammatical errors, I am pretty shit at a lot of this.

Big Family logo bus
I see you tailgating me.
big family little income bus logo 3
Okay, so maybe there’ll be room on the side of the bus for the full blog name. Note: our bus will not look this flash. Most of the orange will probably be rust.
Too much?
Too much?

Raising a family on little more than laughs

Sharing is caring

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter
  • Email
  • Print
  • More
  • Reddit
  • Tumblr
  • LinkedIn

Related

10
Facebook Twitter Pinterest
Google + LinkedIn Email

You may also like

the first ever training session
February 16, 2011

the first ever training session

Twister Game
September 8, 2010

Lots of Knots

October 17, 2012

Jibber Jabbering

Previous articleMy Lunch Box Failure
Next articleThe More Things Change

10 Comments

  • Susan says:
    August 4, 2016 at 10:28 pm

    Love it, the bus with the glasses look great.

    Reply
  • Anonymous says:
    August 4, 2016 at 11:17 pm

    Fantastic Bruce, love it!

    Reply
  • Shaz says:
    August 4, 2016 at 11:27 pm

    Love it Bruce….ive been reading your blog for ages…and that new logo is all you!

    Reply
  • Bel says:
    August 4, 2016 at 11:51 pm

    Awesome! Love it!

    Reply
  • Bailey says:
    August 5, 2016 at 8:22 am

    That’s great! And I’m glad you waited there while I followed directions and headed back up the top to have another look!!

    Reply
  • Anonymous says:
    August 5, 2016 at 10:14 am

    You should hit malcolm up for your stickers. We carry a sticker machine around oz, with us in the bus lol.

    Reply
  • David says:
    August 5, 2016 at 7:28 pm

    So, when can we get the shirts?

    Reply
  • Jac says:
    August 8, 2016 at 2:49 pm

    Looks fab but it is quite similar to the Pilates Nerd logo. Might just want to check it out from a copyright perspective. I don’t really know how that stuff works …

    Reply
    • Bruce Devereaux says:
      August 8, 2016 at 4:06 pm

      It’s a fairly standard hipster look. We just played with the glasses until they looked a bit like mine.

      Reply
  • [email protected] through the haze says:
    August 10, 2016 at 2:15 pm

    Logos are really hard work. I used to work in brand design and coming up with a logo for a client was easy for me but do you think I can brand my own blog – not to save myself!!

    Reply

What do you think? Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Totally Cut Out

Keep Me In The Loop

Enter your email address here and I'll send you the latest as it happens without Facebook making me pay them

Join 23,637 other subscribers

want to promote something on this blog?

Safety 1st - Keeping It Real
Grandma's Classic Sausage Rolls
Grandma's Lambs Brains
The Boy Who Lived
Grandma's Undies

Find your perfect spot

My Most Popular Posts Today

  • Safety 1st - Keeping It Real
    Safety 1st - Keeping It Real
  • Grandma's Classic Sausage Rolls
    Grandma's Classic Sausage Rolls
  • Grandma's Lambs Brains
    Grandma's Lambs Brains
  • The Boy Who Lived
    The Boy Who Lived
  • Grandma's Undies
    Grandma's Undies
  • The Potions Riddle Solution
    The Potions Riddle Solution
  • Beef Pad Seuw
    Beef Pad Seuw
  • Guess Who's Going To Home School Their Kids?
    Guess Who's Going To Home School Their Kids?

These guys helped save Tracey’s life

Table Top Game Reviews

Worst Camping Trip Ever

A 'CHAPTER BOOK' STORY FOR KIDS BY BRUCE DEVEREAUX (That's me, folks)

Hippy Health

Pinnacle Village Holiday Park, North Qld

On the beach, converted train carriages available, paradise

For all your sticker needs

Evil Genius Mum

Keep Me In The Loop

Enter your email address here and I'll send you the latest as it happens without Facebook making me pay them

Join 23,637 other subscribers

More Stories

BIG blog, BIG laughs

Some Explanation Required

Join me on Instagram :)

This error message is only visible to WordPress admins

Error: No feed found.

Please go to the Instagram Feed settings page to create a feed.

Copyright Bruce Devereaux 2016 • Site lovingly designed by Swish Design
Back to top
 

Loading Comments...