Over the last 18 months, we’ve had the pleasure of providing design support to Phil Haussler as he follows his passion. In addition to his day job at one of Oxide’s other clients, Phil is also a children’s book author — teaming up with illustrator Brad Sneed and web developer Ken Wiebke to create a company called MarbleSpark. In Phil’s words, MarbleSpark is “a storybook publisher, a blog, and a pack of do-gooders trying to help you spark your kids’ minds, their creativity, their brilliance.” (That idea of igniting your brain is where they came up with the name.)

Early on, we provided creative input on the name of the company’s premiere personalized book offering: Following Featherbottom. (Named for Felix Featherbottom, the stork who travels the world to collect the letter’s of your child’s name. Before the end of 2009, you’ll be able to create your very own personalized version of the book on their web site.) It’s a wonderful idea, and we’re honored to be a part of it.

Phil Haussler's original concept for the MarbleSpark logo

After that, Phil asked us for a favor. In a minimal amount of time, would it be possible to refine MarkbleSpark’s existing logo in a way that made it simpler and more professional?  As a brand new company, it’s important for MarbleSpark to have their full name shown, and not rely on consumers learning to recognize an abstract symbol. Phil had built a logo that showed the name, and also captured (quite literally) the idea of the marble and the spark. Problem was, the logo was relatively complex and difficult to implement.

At Oxide, we always try to bring absolute clarity to the solutions we develop. When talking with Phil about refining the logo, everyone agreed that the idea of representing the two objects of MarbleSpark in their logotype was a great concept that should be retained in the process. So we built off that idea and aimed for a cleaner, simpler logo. In a serendipitous moment, we discovered that the words MarbleSpark could cleverly contain the marble and the spark in a perfectly clear but unique way. The logo shown at the start of this post is the final result of our collaboration with Phil.