This is a nice wee piece of work for Reuters journalist and film maker, Max Duncan. We became friends when he moved into, as we moved out of, our old Beijing courtyard apartment. He approached me to help with creating a modest personal brand identity to present to the world. He works in documentary and news so needed nothing overly elaborate or shouty, and something quite clean that would always allow his work to take centre stage. We also had to test and refine the best copy options for the bolt-on text.

We experimented with a variety of formal word mark options – a ‘logo’ or isotype is rarely going to be appropriate for an individual, especially if their work isn’t commercial – and we arrived at this timeless construction. Bold and technical, but lean and airy, something that would sit comfortably alongside the tone and diverse range of his work and be set to endure. We did work in quite a subtle graphic device; substituting a letter for an abstracted viewfinder cross hair icon, which serves really nicely to represent his trade, his dedication and focus to sharp storytelling, and works as a neat avatar/favicon too.

*photographic images for the mockups are my own.