The Leftorium

I decided to do a logo for The Leftorium next because (a) it didn't really have one and (b) I'm left-handed.
One of my personal failings is difficulty remembering left from right. Partly because I'm right-eyed, so my brain is cross-wired, and partly because as a lefty I'm in the habit of automatically reversing anything I'm shown, so in my mind, left is right (and right is wrong). In order to get it right when I want left, I've developed the habit of looking at my hands to check directions. When thumb and forefinger are extended, the left hand makes an L. So that's the symbol I chose for my logo design.

The rest of the type was set in a rounded font to imitate the rounded fingertips. I used a font called Folks Heavy for that, because I liked the combination of rounded and squared-off edges.

I kept the orange color used on the sign in the episodes where the store has been shown, but decided to dump the wordy and dull descriptive line, "Everything for the Left-Handed Man, Woman and Child," substituting the shorter and mildly-punny "All That's Left."

The Springfield Isotopes

I did two items for the Isotopes, a logo and a standard "Baseball" name treatment, the usual angled script text with a swooshing tail, just like you see on the front of practically every baseball team out there:

I chose fonts that have a Springfield vibe to them. The Script is A&S Blaze, and the block lettering for "Springfield" is Font Diner Huggable. The capital I became the famous inanimate carbon rod with the simple addition of an oval at one end. I added an atomic symbol to balance it out.

For the hats, I created a logo by combining the atomic symbol with the capital I:Of course everything had to be the sickly radioactive green color.

And so it begins....

So here's the story: my church was having a fundraiser lunch, and the theme was baseball. They were peddling hot dogs after church with the profit going to the youth group, and to make it more fun, we were all supposed to wear a shirt or hat for our favorite baseball team.

I don't have a favorite baseball team. I'm not a sports guy.

But I am a graphic designer-illustrator-cartoonist guy, and I have a fondness for the Simpsons, so I decided that my family should be outfitted with shirts for Homer's favorite team, the Springfield Isotopes. I did a quick search and found that there's never been an official logo for the team on the show or in the comics, at least not that I could find. I did a quick search of the US Trademark office and found that the name isn't registered as a trademark. I discovered that there is a Minor League team called the Albuquerque Isotopes, but I didn't like their logo. So I designed my own and made some iron-ons.

Then I got to thinking about all the many businesses in Springfield USA, and how most of them have no real logo design; they usually just do plain block lettering, figuring that the name is joke enough.

As it happens, I am self-employed (involuntarily, after a corporate downsizing shoved me out of a position at an in-house marketing department), and could use a project to keep my skills up and serve as a little self-promotion. I enjoy typography and logo design, and so I've taken on the task of redesigning Springfield's business community.

Every so often, maybe a few times a week, maybe daily, maybe once a week or twice a month (I don't want to make promises here), I'll design a new logo for one of Springfield's businesses and post it here for nameless, faceless strangers to look at and comment on. Sound like fun?

Let's begin with the one that started it all.