I thought I'd write a post giving a little bit of background and insight into the logo that I did for the CB contest. I'm not na�ve enough to think that everyone would like it, or that a majority of CBers would appreciate subtleties in branding and typography. But I do think a little bit of context will help.

A logo typically consists of a symbol and/or typography. Believe it or not, I did think about what sort of symbol or mark could represent CB. The obvious ties to BYU sports come to mind -- a 'Y', a cougar, etc -- but I felt that it would be straying too far into BYU's territory with those types of marks if they were to be done well. I thought about sports icons in general -- something involving a football and/or a basketball, perhaps -- but I didn't want to go too far down that road since part of the charm of CB is that it's also about more than just sports once you get here. I also felt that it might be overkill using a sports icon since category icons are such a big part of the CB experience.

With that thinking, as well as practical constraints (e.g. the fact that the logo is going to work best horizontally in a nav bar at the top of the site), I decided that a typographic solution was the best route. I tried a variety of different type styles and eventually decided that an athletic block font was a nice way to pay homage to the site's roots in BYU sports. Like I said earlier, I didn't want to go over the top with the sports imagery by pairing it with a sports icon/mark, but I did want to stay true to the main reason that people visit CB and thought it would be more subtle in typography.

I decided to break up the words visually with two tones for three reasons. One was to pay homage to the current logo -- I thought it would be nice to take a recognizable element from the previous version and give it a place in the update. The second was because the site's official name is CougarBoard -- and using two tones is a nice way to separate the words but keep them together (which holds true for the current logo as well). The third reason was to introduce gray into the logo -- which I hoped would find its way into the UI of the new site as a result of the new logo.

The logotype I created is also extendable -- it works well as a stacked lockup and also lends itself well to a nice 'CB' icon/monogram (see below).

Anyway, that's probably more than you cared to read, so congrats if you made it this far. I'm happy to talk branding or design, just shoot me a boardmail.