In early 2011, I made the decision to become my own publisher. Tired of submitting my work to others and following their guidelines, I decided to launch my own little company and boss myself around for a change. But what to name it? And once named, I really wanted to have a logo that represented me and my work in some clear and significant way.
With The St. Augustine Trilogy in development though, it didn’t take long to realize my favorite city had to be the focal point for all this naming and logo business. In the end, Old St. Augustine Publications popped into existence and I locked in the proper website domain name.
Next, the logo. Now whatever I came up with had to also symbolize the city of St. Augustine, FL as well as identify my work and me. Easy choice, actually. Anyone who has ever visited the place immediately thinks of the old Spanish fort, the Castillo de San Marcos. Immediately, I knew I wanted an artistic version of one small segment of the fort that looked like old-fashioned pen and ink drawings. But how to do that?
Aha! With a photo in hand, I visited Gary, my old high school buddy and artist who lives in St. Augustine.
Being the friend that he is, Gary readily agreed to create a drawing from the photo.
What a job he did. Nice, huh?
Then with their vast computer knowledge, my son Greg and his friend Tiffany created a perfect frame, giving me a great black and white logo. From there, they added color for other logo uses.
I couldn’t have been more pleased. Isn’t it nice when a plan comes together even better than you’d hoped? In life, that sure doesn’t happen very often but when it does, it can be a pure joy. Here’s wishing you well on any of the plans you have in mind.
Why the gold coloration for the fort? It’s made of coquina stone. Today it looks gray but when it comes out of the ground it is generally gold or light brown. So, what you see in the colorized version of the logo is probably somewhat close to how the Castillo actually looked when the Spanish finished finished building it over 300 years ago.
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