My original task, creating a logo design for a new non-profit chapter of an international organization was particularly challenging for 2 main reasons:

1. The parent organization has strict rules about local chapters’ logo design: It must incorporate the outer black ring, and therefore has to be circular; it has to include “Women in Aviation” at the top of the black ring, with the local chapter name at the bottom; and the typography has to exactly match their original (although they didn’t specify which typeface).
2. Other chapters’ logo designs tend to include airplanes, city skylines, and sunsets are also heavily favored— in other words, not just literal, but I feel they also don’t take into account that the logo will be quite small in certain uses, like Facebook profile pictures, for example, and therefore all that careful detail is likely to be lost. But this existing design trend also meant that this was the type of design that WVW was expecting.

I decided to take a chance on a different design concept, by focusing on the historical aspects of not only aviation, but our local history as well. Long story very short: The logo represents the evolution from the wagon wheel of the Oregon Trail pioneers to modern aircraft propellers. And the addition of the vertical dotted line to represent the center line of a runway also gives it a more literal aviation reference— it’s what a small-aircraft pilot sees on takeoff roll.

 

Since this logo was created about a year before WVW was ready to launch their new website, I also designed a profile picture and cover image for their Facebook page, using my favorite photo montage technique, and incorporating elements that hint at a long history of aviation:

June 2020 update: Unfortunately, the founder of this group had to close down this group, due to serious family issues that required her to move out of the area. So I’m no longer including any links to this group here.