Helping Hands Carpentry

logo + brand extensions

Helping Hands Carpentry is a small business located in the Pioneer Valley in Massachusetts. The owner contracted me to design a logo that could be used to strengthen their identity and for brand extensions such as business cards and apparel shown above.

The process started with sketching two different concepts with marker on paper. The first had a raw and homegrown feel with rough type, while the second was a badge style logo with a more modern serif type. The client really enjoyed the first sketch, so I went ahead and made a digital version that was a bit more refined. The next step was finding the right typeface. After lots of testing and research, I modified a typeface called Lino Chisel made by Vic Fieger. This matched the sort of homegrown look that the client was looking for. I then sent over a number of different color variations and we settled on a forest green with a beige tone to use for various brand extensions. The business card went through a number of iterations with different hierarchy, size, alignment options, as well as finding the right type pairing to work with the logo. The typeface I used is called Rigid Square designed by Ryoichi Tsunekawa from Dharma Type. It captures a similar quality to Lino Chisel while being a bit easier on the eyes in a smaller format.