Design
A few words about my website and logo design
As my purpose with storytelling has evolved, I felt the need for a new design for my website to convey more clearly what I do. I began with the design of a new logo, which you see splashed across these pages. A graphic design course at Minneapolis College of Art and Design was an invaluable support in helping me undertake this process.
I focused on using the “O” in “stories” as a visual that could stand-alone and could also be a component of the name Studio-Lu Stories. Evoking a sense of wholeness, the circle as a symbol fits the way I work with both Self and Story.
Inspired by the idea of a mandala, I also found a kinship with Zen Enso ink circles because of the non-uniformity of those drawings. Finally, the image of earth was in my mind as a grounding element that could evoke our connections to the natural world and to one another, symbolizing our interdependence.
In the logo, I wanted both the circle and the shapes that comprise it to feel organic, not perfectly circular, reflecting our natural imperfections as human beings. Further, I wanted all the pieces comprising the circle to give a sense of the multitude of unique parts that encompass each of us.
For the center, I created a core to evoke the idea of our essence, and used some irregularly shapes pieces scattered on the circular core to create the look of a tiny planet. The colors radiate out from the center in lighter and darker variations in the same way some parts of our identity expand forward throughout life and remain visible or prominent, while other parts are hidden or less visible over time due to life events.
I chose the colors silver and gold because they are precious metals, wanting them to symbolize the value of Self and Story. It sounds corny, but the old song lyric “make new friends, but keep the old, one is silver and the other is gold” was in my mind, as well. While the song is about friendships, I think of it as speaking to parts of the Self, and the value of both the early, essence parts of us, as well as the tempered, nuanced traits that emerge over the course of life and spiritual growth. I also feel that silver and gold evoke the idea of shadow and light, which I believe is part of all of our stories.
Typography is a huge fascination of mine and I felt strongly that I wanted to choose typefaces for both my logo and website that were designed by women since the field of graphic design, and typography in particular, has traditionally been dominated by men. I never realized how time consuming it would be to find fonts in the style I was seeking that were women-designed. I was helped immensely typographer Victoria Ruston who compiled a list of fonts created by women; and by a network of women typographers called Alphabettes.
The three typefaces I use are: Catalpa for my logo, designed by Veronika Burian and José Scaglione; Catamaran for my website headers by Pria Ravichandran; and Cantanta One for the body text of my website by Joana Correia.