May 29, 2009
I have been drawing a version of my "JCB" Logo since I discovered The Lord of the Rings in the seventh grade. I saw Tolkien's "JRRT" logo (now the official trademark of the Tolkien Estate) and made up my own. It's a little silly, but I always liked it. When I envisioned this website, I first thought I would make the layout really simple and clean, but then I decided it would be cool to include a logo of some kind.
Here are the three versions of this logo that I went through:
The first one I drew in Microsoft Paint, really quickly by hand. Then I emailed my sister (a formidable artist) and asked her how easy it would be to create a "Japanese Ink Brush" version in Adobe Illustrator. In ten minutes, she sent me this:
I loved it! My sister is a very talented and skillful artist, and she is very adept in illustrator and photoshop. As much as I loved her rendition, I wanted to learn how to do it myself. I had never even opened Illustrator before that night, but with this version as inspiration and my wife's help to figure out some of the controls, I made the current version:
I made sure the three strokes at the top (since I am J C Bronsted III) were visible, and I played with it until it was close to the way I draw it on paper. I'm not completely sold on it: I think the top bar might be better if it were a little thicker. But it serves well.