MRI Lightpainting is Ryan Warnberg and Michelle McSwain. Ryan is a talented story teller, writer and works for a living as a music industry marketing nerd at Sony. Michelle is a ridiculously talented photographer, together they form the uniquely creative duo MRI Lightpainting. They are quickly making a name for themselves throughout New York and the world. After designing business cards for both Michelle and Ryan, they came to me to design a logo for their new adventure. After several months of back-and-forth emails and phone calls (they live in NY), we solidified a concept.

The Process

The initial goal of the logo was to express the act of light painting, which is no easy task. After brainstorming, sketching on and off for a month or so, I started to realize that the logo did not have to express what they do. The logo needed to be stylish, simple, memorable and flexible for wide-application. Some of my initial attempts at creating a “lightpainting effect” were successful, however were not versatile enough to work in one color and still carry it’s message. Their work expresses what they do far greater than any logo ever could. The final colors had been determined early-on, as the print colors CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow and black). They wanted bold colors to match the light effects utilized in their work.

Now, my personal favorite for a long time was the simplicity of the top right — semi-circle. However, it does remind me of a few other logos out there. The kerning is a bit off in the version above, oh well. I do still really like it — and I adore the Avant Garde Gothic typeface.

End Result

Here are some final interpretations of the logo. It is versatile enough to work in one color or in a layered fashion, which I am a big fan of. The letter forms are half half-tone, half solid, largely filled-in with slight bottom insets, to hint at their full form. When over-laid in three color, they resemble a screen printed element. They also effectively illustrate light painting, in colors overlapping one another. This can also be manipulated/layered further, offering an endless combination of the original logo, to appear in various mediums.

Emily Johnson makes fantastic jewelry and I am very happy with how her identity turned out. She wanted something that reflected her hand-crafted works and was versatile enough to transcend time. This typeface/logo/brand has been utilized for several marketing materials, her website and large-format banners. Emily is awesome to work with!