A brand new logo.......
And I couldn't be more pleased.
Our first logo was the lovely hand and heart one. At the time, I only had the Pregnancy Relax, Stretch & Breathe class to offer. I told my daughter that I wanted a logo that showed how I wanted to care for and nurture new Mums in their pregnancy journey. I loved what my then 14y old came up.
But as BellyTots has grown over the past 4 years to offer lots more to parents through their pregnancy and early parenting journey, a change felt in order. I was so delighted when BellyTots Mama Sharan offered her skills.
She has worked in Visual Marketing for Harrods and other designer brands so I felt very lucky indeed
Sharan sat down and thought about what BellyTots meant to her and tried to express it visually. Her first draft that I fell in love with was this one. The circular, watery blue made me think of the womb in pregnancy and the calming colours seemed to reflect the stress relief and welcoming feel I try to bring to all my sessions.
I'm a great fan of flowers but found that my brain kept trying to change the flower in the logo..
...to a little foot!
And Sharon was more than happy to instantly mock up a draft with a foot instead. Her own little son's foot providing a template :).
We both really liked it. The little foot reminded me of a scan photo, making the image even more womb like for me; but it also made me think of the baby foot prints I've sometimes done in class.
As we pondered, we both decided we prefered the blue writing and to have 'BellyTots' underneath the foot - almost as if to let the little ones do the talking about who we are at BellyTots. So Sharan amended it and it was off to Laura to work her Adobe Photoshop magic.
When Laura first saw the draft logo, she told me that she feared we were slightly...
...edging into 'uncanny valley' !
with our first mock up of the baby foot. I have never heard of this! Apparently it's when an object is almost life like but not quite......and the human brain can't cope with it and feels very uneasy. It's a technique that's used a lot in edgy animations - but that's not quite what we were going for - lol. So she tweaked the little foot using a photo as a reference.
It still wasn't right though and neither of us could put our finger on it.
We gazed at it for a long time, changing the size, blur and angle. But nothing helped. Then, almost simultaneously, we both said -
It needs two feet!
And that was that.
There was the new logo.
The two little feet completing it as if to say - see, you needed 2 little feet to show the journey BellyTots walks through with Mamas and little ones - from early pregnancy, right through to the pre school years! And beyond for Mamas who stay with me for more advanced Pilates and those who come back with baby number 2....or sometimes 3!
I hope you love it as much a I do. Thank you again Sharan and Laura. Look out for our new logo popping up everywhere!