Earlier this morning, I posted my 100th "Making the Logo" video on my channel. Find it here. I was supposed to upload last night, but I forgot. That happens a lot actually. Anyway, this is a special event for me, if even my count might not be entirely correct. I could be off by a few, either way. I started making these logos years before I started recording the event. Here's how it began. When we first opened my store, BookNotes, we borrowed a few easels for display purposes, two small easels and two large ones. Sometime after the store's opening, we returned three of the easels, but we kept one of the large ones. The easel's original owners ultimately just threw them out, but that is beside the point. We used to easel to support a dry erase board to present various messages, such as sales or if we would be opening up late/be closed for a day. The board got knocked over one day, shattering the frame. I still have all the pieces, but I usually just use the bottom one to help support the board. Well, I eventually got 'bored' with just seeing the same old name being used, so I thought of ways to jazz it up. One of the first times was for Halloween. I made each "o" in book into an eye and placed a slight mouth underneath them, as well as a faint outline making it sort of like a ghost. Making the left side of the "k" into an exclamation point made it look like it was a ghost shouting "BOO!" Over the next few years, I would come up with other ideas tying the logo into the current season or holiday somehow. At the time, I didn't know that Google pretty much did the same thing with their logo. (I was using Yahoo at the time whenever I got online at the public library.) When I first got my own computer in the summer of 2018, a MacBook Pro, I realized it had an app, Photo Booth, that could be used to take both photos and videos. I immediately realized a potential venue for social media content, and I decided to start filming my logo making sessions. (Yes, I know about Apples' iMovie app as well. I have tried it out a few times, but never for "Making the Logo." There is just too much for me to fully understand, and the few times I have tried it hasn't produced good results.) That first video had watermelons as the theme, with each "o" made into a green striped watermelon; the final one was cut open to see the pink insides and seeds. Fruit has been a common element, from apples to pawpaws, with the "o" being the most common letter altered. "Ts" have been used as scarecrows. "Ks" have been people raking leaves. Once, I even made each letter into a rabbit, but I might not have filmed that one. Many of the earliest videos don't have a title, something I'm slowing changing. I crosspost the clips onto both my Facebook, and, later, LinkedIn pages. I usually upload the video directly onto my store's Facebook page, for various reasons I don't want to go into. Over the years, I done a lot to my store's logo. While I usually just alter a few elements, as I mentioned above, I sometimes make the entire logo into a picture instead. I've had the logo on a birthday cake, and the letters throwing a birthday party. I gone vertical with a multi-scoop ice cream cone, and I've gone totally random with debris from a tornado. I've done minimalist with a cherry blossom branch with the logo written small on the side, and I've gone all out with the letters as tracks on a roller coaster. I managed to keep the series going even during lockdown, quickly crafting videos on the fly on my irregular trips to the store to check on it, without opening. Two of my favorite videos would have to be 'Jellybeans" and "Scarf." The former is just a row of different colored jellybeans, with the letters erased out of them using a negative technique. The latter is one of the longest and most intricate designs I've ever pulled off. The logo is made to look like it was knitted multiple times along the entire length of the scarf, wrapped around a person's neck. The scarf is in multiple shades of blue, with a snowflake design replacing each of the "Os." The scarf is wrapped in such a way the each part of the logo is visible at either end, just before the tassels. For my 100th video, I went simple. Just a basic logo in blue, with a red play button, similar to the YouTube symbol, in place of the final "o." There is also a surprise hidden in the video, but you'll have to watch it to find it. This is also the first time I ever spoke in the video, so I hope you can hear me. Here's looking at me!
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