About ‘Boyensea’, and me.
During university, it dawned upon me that social media has made its partakers into curators of their own identities, unknowingly establishing each and everyone as brands of sorts, commodities.
I thought it would be interesting to try and develop a visual identity that I could relate to and henceforth claim as my own personal-and-personalized brand/logo.
Looking for the best word to describe my ethos, I instead looked at my insecurities for inspiration.
What am I afraid of and how does it relate to what I do?
After much deliberation, one word ultimately hovered to the top of the pile:
buoyancy
[boi-uh n-see, boo-yuh n-see]
noun
1. the power to float or rise in a fluid; relative lightness
2. lightness or resilience of spirit; cheerfulness
The reflection was followed by the first entry of an eponymous blog (which was never made public), explaining its personal meaning:
I am admittedly confused about my place in the world. Studying in design can often make one believe that the impact of our work inherently serves to better humanity, through the creation of better (empathetic) products, services, experiences. With such lofty aspirations comes anguish related to personal responsibility, which is inextricably tied to creative confidence.
Freeze.
What values am I trying to impart through my designs? What if it - or myself - isn’t good enough. What happens when ambitiousness meets it kryptonite: the Now. As trudging along the present seemingly keeps you from tomorrow. Committing to the first etch on a page can often be the toughest of challenges.
I liked the word for what it represents figuratively – the rising (of ideas and ultimately of better design) but spelling Buoyancy as so felt too literal and tacking on design as a suffix had already been done so I explored different ways of expressing the same idea while also attempting to give the word more poise, at least graphically, as well as making it more personal. I began by deliberately misspelling it: Boyensea.
The word always conjures to the mind a body of water; Sea. I chose to represent it graphically to strengthen the link using serifs. Yen because I was at a point in my life infatuated with Japanese culture and as such, it reveals a bit about my identity. The mark is styled as an obvious nod to Robert Indiana’s iconic Love sculpture, with the slanted O seemingly floating atop the waves, buoyed.