ELENA SCHER PSYCHOTHERAPY
Elena Scher is a psychotherapist based in Austin, Texas. She reached out to me looking for a total refresh of her branding. We’re off to a strong start, next up is custom stationary items and a new website!
The design challenge
Elena Scher is not your average therapist. When I sat down with Elena in our initial meeting, I immediately felt comfortable. Her office is small and intimate, tucked right off of Bee Caves road. It has tall windows, lots of natural light, and big comfy chairs. She has beautiful curly red hair and a timeless sense of style. As we started talking, our conversation felt more like a chat with a friend than a business meeting.
Finding a therapist thats the right fit for you is crucial, so I wanted her branding to give future client’s a sense of her energy. I imagined someone sifting through lists of therapists, seeing her logo, and in their gut knowing that they have something in common with her. The challenge was creating something that represented her and the work that she does, and keeping it approachable and fun but professional.
Logo Sketches
In our initial meeting, she shared with me some of the motifs she loves. This included flowers, evil eyes, and this shopping bag that she had been saving that she loved because of the pop of neon.
While sketching, I explored these ideas as well as this keyhole concept. The keyhole represents unlocking something in yourself, facing a challenge even when you don’t know what is on the other side, closing one door so you can open another, and so on, much like in therapy.
Digital sketches
I continued exploring these ideas digitally, sketching in Adobe Fresco and in Adobe Illustrator. I began exploring possible typefaces and their pairings with my symbols.
I had a lot of fun creating these sketches. I experimented with combining more than one of my ideas into one logo. I played with incorporating swirls to these sketches as a nod to her curly hair. With this round of sketches, I was fighting for a balance of fun but not too casual, and also the hierarchy of her name versus the illustration.
Digital drafts
After presenting Elena with my strongest sketches, we decided to move forward with the eye concept. The eye represents seeing more clearly or opening your eyes to reality, again much like in therapy. Additionally, she asked me to explore the brain, curly hair, glasses, and half face concepts.
We narrowed the typeface down to these two options. On the more scripted font, I created a custom cursive ‘E’. The other typeface feels clean, but still has personality, and paired better with the more hand drawn symbols.
Of these, Elena liked the my brain illustration and the eye illustration the best.
Almost there…
Here is where things started to get exciting! I started playing with color and the arrangement of the logo. While we both loved this business card mockup with the eye motif, we decided the brain was a better symbol for a psychotherapist. I played with an idea where we put the eye in the brain, which I did like, but ultimately I decided it was better to go with a more simple option.
Final Logo
And finally, we arrived at the final logo. I refined the brain illustration, stacked the type, and added a pop of neon with the line under her name. This final brain illustration is hand drawn and curly, the final typeface we chose is both playful and refined, all of which further represents Elena and her psychotherapy practice.Elena and I are both so pleased with how this turned out.
This project was my first freelance assignment where I did not have a personal relationship with the client beforehand. This experience has been invaluable to me, and the lessons I learned navigating this have helped me to become a better designer and professional.
Below, you can see the business cards and email signature I designed for her. I am excited to continue expanding on her branding as I work to create her custom stationary items and a whole new website.
