The Logo Says it All

Silvery Phacelia (Phacelia Argenta)

While working closely with the local fauna on the Bandon Preserve I got it in my head that the silvery phacelia plant would be the perfect place to start a logo concept. The silvery phacelia is a rare dune plant which thrives in the open sand dunes of Oregon’s south coast. Its largest known population exists on the Southern tip of the Bandon Dunes Golf Resort (follow the link to learn more about the conservation effort of the silvery phacelia plant at the Bandon Dunes Golf Resort, Takin' it All In by Jeff Stein).

In order to bring my idea to fruit I decided to enroll myself in a bronze casting class at South West Oregon Community College, Coos Bay, Oregon.  I spent two nights a week for two months developing the logo through its many and varied stages of production, not a simple task.

I started with a carefully molded wax model and was able to reproduce my design five times from a "mother mold" that I created from the original.  The bronzing process was a success, but much more painstaking than I anticipated.  Each of the five silvery phacelia statues, in addition to ten smaller single bronze leafs, required hours of finish grinding and sanding because of the imperfect process that is bronze casting.  In an attmept to put together the killer marketing package I created a graphic design of the stautes that I hope with make it as the offical logo of the Bandon Preserve. 

I am obviously proud to have taken an idea born of my own physical work and then to create an object that holds space with weight and texture, it is extremely satisfying.  The last step to unify the idea in my head was a marketable graphic that could be printed, embroidered, or stamped.  The graphic design process was something even more foreign to me.  For this I hired an extremely talented artist, Jon Snider of Goodspeed Graphics.  We corresponded through e-mails and pictures of my bronze statues.  From our distant communication we were able to come up with a pretty good preliminary design that I hope will please those in marketing at the Bandon Dunes Golf Resort. 

Preliminary Logo

I have relished the opportunity to fully immerese myself in all aspects of the Bandon Preserve project.  Through my experiences working on the golf course I received a first class education from Bill Coore and design associate Dave Zinkand.  At the same time I learned about development, project management, maintanence practices, and marketing. Its been one of my best learning experiences so far on the job and I can't wait to begin my next project.