Pulled From My Files #48: JIMMY OLSEN LOGO

Images © DC Comics.

In 1996 I was asked by Janice Walker of DC’s Licensing Department to design a logo for Jimmy Olsen that would be only used on licensed products. I began with three hand-drawn sketches in pencil, inked with markers, as was my usual method. This first one was meant to suggest Jimmy’s handwriting, and is not very successful.

The second sketch is some where between that and a more traditional logo approach, still informal and with no straight lines, but having some traditional type characteristics and an open drop shadow to give it depth.

The third sketch followed the same basic idea of lower case with initial caps and some informal bounce, but all the verticals were ruled straight. Janice liked this the best, and asked for more variations of it.

I scanned the sketch and traced it in Adobe Illustrator to create a vector logo, then added an old-fashioned box camera and flash for this version, playing on Jimmy’s photographer role in some of the comics and the first Superman movie.

Here the camera is just an idea symbolized by the small flash on the I and the receding shadow. Janice liked this a lot, but asked to have the shadow separated by a hairline of white so it could be more easily color-separated.

Here’s that version, which I think is the one sent in as final. I’ve never seen it in use anywhere, but the idea was for the hairlines to be filled in by the same color used for the shadow. Version 5 is a better idea of what that should look like. I’m happy with the way it turned out.