Most of the stuff in our logo design portfolio tends to skew pretty feminine, so it’s always fun when we get the challenge to create something that’ll be more appealing to the guys out there. Cruz Bay hired us recently to create a really cool fish logo design package to cover all bases imaginable for this startup apparel brand.

Lawrence Martin from Cruz Bay wanted to use the mahi mahi fish as the main graphic element for this design – as he put it, “it’s both the ugliest and most beautiful fish in the world.” You can’t argue with that – check out the ugly mug and beautiful colors on this sucker:

In creating the Cruz Bay fish logo, I paid special attention to the mahi mahi fish’s forehead shape. I really wanted guys who fish to know exactly which one this was, even in the black and white version.

The color palette came easily; we were guided by the trademark colorings of the mahi mahi fish; deep chocolate brown and a little black  add punch here and there.

One thing about creating a logo – it’s got to work for production, and that means you need to plan for how it will look when they’re shrunk down tiny. This fish logo is so illustrated, and so detailed, that it just got lost when it was reduced down. I started thinking about embroidery – the only way for this fish logo to really work as a left chest embroidery on a polo shirt someday would be to create a bug of the logo that was a filled in mahi mahi shape.

As we finessed this logo design, we started thinking of other apparel company needs. Tagless t shirts are huge these days – what about creating a one color badge version of the logo that would look really cool stamped on the inside neck of a t shirt?

And then we just got crazy with it:

That full color version rocks my socks – I love how it kind of feels like a fish mounted on the wall, but not in the cheesy singing bass kind of way.

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