Evolution of a Jackalogo

My dream-bike-in-progress, the Jackalope, will have a logo etched (“bead blasted”) into the titanium, on each side of the frame. I have been working on said logo for over a week. Here’s the latest iteration:

Jackalope facing Left

That is iteration #19. Here’s how it started:

First draft

And here are some iterations between 1 and 19:

Second draft
Made the antlers look like bike handlebars!
Text inside the animal
Integrating inside text with animal curves
More text/curve integration. Now it looks kinda like a digestive tract. Bug or feature??
Warped the text to follow the body curve of the Jackalope
Made a left-facing version because logo needs both right- and left-facing
Some preferred the text below, so I pivoted to simplifying the animal.
Simplified animal outline with text inside
Should the Jackalope have pointy feet?…
This one has a pointy front foot and more rounded back foot
Stylized rounded front foot on this one. Dead end.
I decided I preferred the pre-simplified outline, but thought the cursive text might be insufficiently legible, so tried it with a more legible font.
Subtle adjustment on back legs, so the “e” doesn’t touch the leg gap
Nope, I preferred the cursive.
Here’s #19 again. I rounded the letters a bit, and connected them like real cursive. I separated the ears and adjusted the handlebars/antlers. I made a few subtle curve adjustments to integrate the letters.
Latest Jackalope logo facing Right. Some people don’t like the “J” going out its butt, but you can’t please everyone!
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Author: Nina Paley

Animator. Director. Artist. Scapegoat.

5 thoughts on “Evolution of a Jackalogo”

  1. I like it, the attention to detail and the symbolism. Simple logos reproduce best; check out Apple’s logo history. Beadblasting isn’t high-resolution, so fine lines blur in small logos. It makes a beautiful finish though, and titanium can show better-defined lines than soft aluminum. A test etching might cause design changes. The beads themselves are actually cat-eye-like light retroreflectors if you point headlights at them, definitely my blasting media of choice and easy to use wearing goggles. I like #19 draft #1 most, but the integrated legible font one has clean lines and could evade Johnny Dear’s lawyers with its unique homespun feel.

  2. George Wyche here.
    It has been so long since your last post (May!) that I am worried about you.

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