I’ve been pondering creating a new logo for my content for a few weeks. I’m interested in doing some more streaming under the “Painfully Hopeful” moniker ¹, and the old kayaker logo just wasn’t cutting it.

So I pondered a few different ideas on what imagery I should use. I tried using a fairy tale font, which replaced the “o” in “Hopeful” with a broken heart. It was a neat concept, but cheesy. Then I pondered contrasting “Painfully” and “Hopeful,” set on top of each other, putting storm clouds on the top and a emerging light on the bottom. The light effect looked cool ², but I found it difficult to read.

I then turned back to the broken heart in my fairy tale concept, and determined to make it the centerpiece of the logo. Creating the cracked heart wasn’t difficult, but there seemed to be something missing–that’s when I determined I’d create a bandaid to place over the fracture point on the heart. Creating the bandage was satisfying, because I had zero clue if I could pull it off, and I am beyond pleased with the result ³. I then added the text on two levels next to the heart, and figured it was complete.

The next morning I woke up wanting to see if I could find a way to make use of some negative space to add a cross. This is was important to me, as my faith is why I both dare to hope and submit to feeling the pain of this world. It didn’t take me long to find a space to add this, and then it was complete.

I’m excited by the end product. This is a logo I’ll be able to use in a variety of situations, and I made it from scratch ⁴. It’s mine.