AC Vent

UK identity designer Graham Smith over at ImJustCreative.com has been doing a wonderful series recently called the Logo Design Roundup: Over 50 Ways Designers Promote and Brand Themselves. It’s a collection of logos designed by/for different freelance designers and design agencies. It’s been interesting to see the logos that designers create for themselves, as opposed to logos that have catered (in however small an amount) to an outside client’s whims and demands.

Check it out here:

Logo Design Roundup Part 1
Logo Design Roundup Part 2
Logo Design Roundup Part 3
Logo Design Roundup Part 4
Logo Design Roundup Part 5 (my own AC logo is part of this collection)

How did you come up with your business name? What’s the story behind it?

Naturally when I was creating this blog, I ran into the issue of what to call it. Something like ‘Amanda’s Blog’ was way too generic. But something like ‘The Green Dragon Design Notes’ was too obscure and too much.

Surprisingly, it didn’t take that long to settle on ‘AC Vent.’ It’s short, easy to remember, not hard to say. It also means several things, all of which work for me: AC being my initials (and an old nickname) and matching my logo, venting being one of the things blogs are used to do, and then together ‘AC Vent’ bringing to mind air conditioning and all of the connotations that come along with that. In this case, the connotations I had in mind were: air conditioning being a necessity here in Austin, like design is a necessity for many things; and ‘hot air’ meaning empty or idle talk so air conditioning/cold air should be meaningful talk.

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My current logo (which I am quite fond of) grew out of a process over a couple of years. My very first logo, made when I wanted something fancy on my resume when I was applying for a summer job years ago, was just a layering of Wingdings swirly symbols compiled in Word (don’t be a hater, we all start somewhere).

I eventually did a slightly more customized, enhanced version of that, which lasted for a year or two.

After design school training kicked in, I wanted something more professional, but not so generic. I actually didn’t know at the time that I was going to end up as a freelancer, but was planning on having a personal portfolio site regardless, so decided to do something centering around my initials (A & C).

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