I’ve been developing business-to-business marketing programs for most of my career. In large companies, I work on marketing strategy and campaigns, including writing, and editing. Typically, there’s a graphic artist on the project to handle the design and develop the visual brand.

I implement the branding campaigns, and when I work with small companies and startups, I have had occasion to set up a couple of professional-looking websites, too. I am pretty handy with a template.

I draw the line at logos, however. (No pun intended.) That’s not my forte.

Hire a Design Pro

If your organization does not have a logo or a consistent visual brand, I absolutely recommend hiring a professional designer. That one small image will do a big job for you, evoking the spirit of your organization on your website, stationery, social media pages, ads — even packaging, if you have it.

I’m not recommending myself for the brand design job. (If you’re looking for a designer, I’d be happy to help you find one. Feel free to contact me for a referral.)

Meet the Interrobang

Instead of taking my own advice, however, I decided to try my hand at designing a visual brand for my own business.

Mine is a service business, so the brand has to reify an intangible. (I love the word “reify.”) I want the design to reflect the best qualities of my business. It should look polished, but informal. It should express curiosity and excitement, while inspiring confidence.

Enter the interrobang.

Dictionary.com defines “interrobang” as a noun, meaning:

a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question.

I love that word, too. And I love the whole notion of combining inquiry with emphasis. In fact, I wanted to adopt interrobang.com for my web address, but someone grabbed up that URL before I got a chance. (Don’t even bother to look at it. There’s some nasty crap parked there.) I also investigated different forms of the word “reify” — with similarly disappointing results.

I picked a different website name, and I’m happy with it, but I still feel attached to the interrobang. So I decided to work it into a logo instead.

My Design Process

Here are some thoughts about the design.

I separated the combined punctuation mark into two, and chose a bold, sans-serif font. The dark blue color is soothing and serious. Then I added a diagonal, yellow rectangle, to represent a highlighter pen. That evokes urgency, importance, and specificity, which are qualities that are also inherent in the interrobang idea.

The bright yellow also adds visual excitement. (Designers call it a “pop” of color.) I re-worked the punctuation marks as outlines with a transparent fill, to make the yellow stripe more prominent.

Then I thought about it some more, and decided to go with the solid shapes instead. This is the updated version.

What do you think of the result? Let me know. My feelings won’t be hurt, I promise.

Should I stick with it, or keep trying? Is it a go or a no-go?