My friend Alfie Bown runs the Hong Kong Review of Books. In addition to running some of my illustrations, he recently asked me to come up with a new logo for the site. I woke up a few days later with an idea.
Somehow the shapes in the negative space of the letters just fell into place.
The B was the only part I struggled with since it looked more like an 8 in my original sketches. The other letters seemed obvious. I hinted at more of a B-shape by having the background outline bisect the circles. It’s still the weak point in the legibility of the logo but also possibly the most visually interesting part.
Here it is with some color:
And then I did one more iteration for good measure:
This is only my second requested logo design (Rapper friend Alaska was the first). Thanks to Alfie Bown for the opportunity.