Thoughts Behind Mellylee.com’s Redesign

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One thing that I disregarded for the longest time was my own branding. I’ve been working as a photographer since college but rarely bothered with things like promos, business cards, letterheads, etc. I figured that since I was still developing my own style and taste at that time I wouldn’t bother with putting myself on blast and screaming “Yo! I’m a photographer! Hire me!” anything I’d create would come off as common or cheesy. Fast forward to a year ago when I decided to leave my startup company and focus entirely on photography I knew that (for lack of better words) I needed to get my $hit together. I reached out to my good friend Benson Chou /The Imaginary Zebra for his expertise.

I was taking my annual sabbatical in New York last October and accidentally ran into the photo convention PhotoPlus. There were a lot of top dog photographers roaming around the concrete jungle. Everything they, did, said, shown seemed to embody a cohesive sense of their identity as visual artist. (Granted there were a few that you’d raise a confused eyebrow too.) Being surrounded by a sea of like-minded individuals gave me the boost of motivation to focus more on my work. I left my company, NewMediaRockstars, in November 2012 and started to refine my shooting and artistic style. It should be noted that refinement is an ongoing task and no easy feat. I kept shooting, developing, and collaborating on projects/concepts I genuinely enjoyed and hoped that within time a pattern would start to emerge. –That’s something a lot of us from Generation Y need to work on: patience. ♫ cue Mackelmore’s 10,000 Hours ♫

When I started noticing and embracing their vibrant, weird, quirkiness in my images I reached out to Benson to help me translate loose ideas in my mind into graphic elements. I was looking for a clean and flexible design that revolved around my name (I think logos with cameras or aperture blades are cheesy) and quirkiness while still having the ability to scale the design to various sizes and mediums. Here’s a few items that the Zebra dude developed, the rest is viewable over on Benson’s blog →http://www.theimaginaryzebra.com/melly-lee-design-process/

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