I was recently asked to design the logo for a new comic book based on the real life childhood of Vlad Tepes, aka Vlad "Count Dracula" the Impaler. It's the first logo in a really long time that I have done where I hand-lettered the type and developed a custom logotype without using an existing font, so I thought it would be an interesting case for a process essay. Now, let me begin at the beginning:

In order to design the logo I started out by reading the script for the first issue. It introduced me to the main themes and historical context of the storyline. I then took some of the reference material that the author (Steve Snyder) sent to me and the artist and used them as a springboard for my own research.

As it turns out, Vlad Tepes lived from 1431 to about 1476 or so, which was also a pretty interesting time in the history of typography/calligraphy. It was during this period that the movable type printing press was invented and put into use for the first time in Europe. The story takes place during the period in which the Ottoman Turks were invading, like, everything. That means that gothic typography as well as turkish calligraphy is in play for a historically accurate logo.

The next thing I did was try to identify some historically accurate typefaces (and some that I just thought fit stylistically). I pulled about 40 faces from my library of about 6000. Mostly they were pulled because they fit in historically, either with the Gothic theme or the Turkish Calligraphy theme.

Here's just a few of the typefaces I looked at for inspiration:

I then got out my Moleskine and started redrawing by hand the characters, ligatures or ornaments that I found interesting.

After I drew all the elements I was interested in recreating I started to draw "original" characters by combining elements of the different typefaces that I found interesting. This is also when I cracked open my copy of "A History of Graphic Design" (Meggs) and flipped to the sections that cover the years that Vlad Tepes was alive.

On those pages I found Albrect Durer's system for drawing gothic alphabets, which was very helpful. Understanding how people determined the proportions of their letters during the period went a long way to helping me start to build my own alphabet.

Then, after I got the feel for the proportions, I started to put characters together in some semblance of order. I also started contemplating the letter U, which if I were to be totally historically accurate, would more closely resemble the letter V we all know and love now.

On the final page of my hand-drawn I started to put it all together and draw alternates of individual letters to choose from when I took it into the computer. Hopefully you can see things starting to make sense at this phase.

The rest of the process is relatively boring unless you are a total photoShop voyuer and enjoy watching people making the sausage. Basically, I scanned all my drawings, opened them in photoShop and cut and pasted them together until I found a combination that I was happy with.

I left in all the little stray marks and ticks that come with a hand-drawn original logotype. It's appropriate for the subject matter in my opinion. This is what it looks like on the cover art that was given to me:

It probably won't look much like this when it gets published, but you get the general idea, right?

Special Thanks to Steve Snyder for inviting me to participate in yet another fun and rewarding project.