Graphic Design

My Personal Logo

For my own logo, I had an idea way back in 2017 during my time at university. While trying to come up with a symbol that represented me, I stumbled upon the star "Mira", which I share the same last name with. Mira is a star in the Cetus constellation, and is notable for having a "tail" despite it not being a shooting star. Immediately I had an idea for a star with a literal tail wrapping around it. Since this was during one of my first intro classes in design, you can see how the logo ended up being too "literal" even though that was the initial idea. Since I wasn't the most proud of it, I scrapped it and went on going through different phases of my own personal branding.

8 years later in 2025, I wanted to update myself as a designer, and knew I needed to craft a distinct logo that I could utilize for my brand. I began with creating a mood board that would help me capture the energy I wanted. I drew a lot of my initial inspiration from the typography behind the Cartoon Network series Powerpuff Girls, and loved it’s boldness, yet also fun bubbliness to it.

My first version (v1) was based off of my initial sketch, which was having a four pointed star in the center of the letter “J”. However, this felt disconnected, and the two graphics seemed to be competing with each other, not complementing. Version 2 (v2) I played with placing the star at the J’s serif, but that also felt disconnect. My final version (v3) was actually made by mistake, where I merged the two elements together by accident. I felt this was the strongest one as it not only unified the logo, but also lent itself more to the “shooting star-tail” motif.

As a designer, I believe that sometimes our mistakes can sometimes lead to generating great ideas.

Logo concept circa 2017
Current personal logo

Logo Re-design Challenge

For this challenge, I wanted to redesign the logo of Filipino restaurant, Bigboi, located on Sawtelle street in Santa Monica.

I thought this would be good for a redesign challenge, as their current logo, although definitely modern and clean, it lacks any semblance of personality that would set it apart from other eating establishments; without any visual indication that is in fact a Filipino restaurant.

There were three approaches I had towards ideating a new logo concept: Near approach, Potential approach, and a Far-Out approach.

Original logo design

For this first iteration of a new logo, I was thinking about the origin of the restaurants name. Upon research, I found that the owner (Chef Barb) named the restaurant after her father who had the common Filipino nickname “Boi”. This idea of the restaurant’s tie to family, as well as the cultural importance of family overall, I began thinking about family crests, and reliquary like objects. As my first version (v1) was quite derivative, with the logo being slapped on with ornate filigree around it, I decided to render it more graphically and incorporate color as well.

Keywords: Magical, Family, Symbolic

Near approach

Final design

Potential approach

For the second design iteration, I wanted to create a new logo altogether. Going back to phrase “Filipino food for all”, I wanted this concept to be abstract, and yet familiar to a Filipino audience. This was accomplished by utilizing the colors of the Philippines flag, which just so happen to be the three primary colors: red, yellow, and blue. At first I was trying to come up with a typographic logo, however I accidentally discovered that the capital letter “B” could look like two little characters sitting next to each other. This would personify the idea of “big” in the name.

Keywords: Bold, Simple, Colorful

Final design

Far-Out approach

For the third design iteration, I really wanted to create a mascot. While the name pays homage to the owner’s actual father, I thought having a separate character would be a fun way to put a face to the brand. Inspired by retro cartoon imagery, I tried all sorts of characters: an anthropomorphic hot dog, a literal hot-dog, an anthropomorphic pig, etc. That’s when I stumbled upon the idea of a little Filipino hot dog with a face. The cool thing is, this type of hot dog is actually bright red in person, making the mascot not only bright and fun, but also true to the food being served.

Keywords: Cute, Classic, Friendly

Final design

Gallery