Masthead and logo design

As evidenced by our blog’s whiteboard background, deliberations over the design of Foothill’s masthead and logo were lively. To our credit and my (pleasant) surprise, while everyone expressed strong opinions, proceedings remained civil.

The whiteboard brainstorm was especially amusing. Like its name, we hoped the journal’s design would somehow echo its concept (a publication for poets who are laboring toward the far off pinnacle of their careers). Moreover, we realized that for some mysterious reason the word foothill reads foo-thill when written in certain fonts. For at least an hour and a half we anxiously and creatively explored ways to set off the two syllables from each other while retaining design integrity. The entire effort was almost crippled by Jordan’s hilarious pictograph of a foot beside what I presume to be an anthill (bottom right of background photo).

I later approached our graphic designer Shari Fournier-Oleary with a headfull of vague and half-baked ideas that she magically made design sense out of. She gave us over twenty options, which resulted in yet another multi-hour discussion at our next meeting. Fingernails were bitten, brows furrowed, opinions advanced and retreated, drinks were drunk, and the white board was again left splattered with absurd graffiti. But decisions were made. 

And after a few minor tweaks submitted to Shari, we had a masthead and logo (below).

What drew us to this masthead is that there is an expansive, almost lonely quality to the emaciated letters fleeing each other across the line. As you may know, the Foothill Avenue that runs along the north border of CGU’s campus is the final stretch of Route 66, a highway that encounters landscapes we felt were echoed in the ambiance of the design without being distastefully literal.

In the logo, this same spirit is preserved along with a kind of playful Modernist e.e. cummings/Charles Olson/Robert Duncan word/line break.

And yes, the design references the journal’s concept not very much. This is probably for the best.

I don’t know that anyone one of us editors got everything we wanted in the deliberations and we were pained to jettison a lot of other great designs, but what we individually compromised compromised nothing in quality. Acclaim for this goes to the incredible work of Shari. And our mothers’ training in civility. And maybe too to the generous donation of several boxes of Dale Brothers 22oz. bottles we received from the Office of Advancement (left over from an alumni event I wish I’d been at).