Celebrating 10 Years: A Look at How My Business Has Evolved Since 2012
While journaling this morning, I was overcome with immense gratitude for where I currently am in my business and how far I’ve come since starting Incandescent Creative over 10 years (!) ago.
I started this little design studio within one year of graduating college and it has been through several iterations since. I have designed, refined, and redesigned my logo and brand identity three times. I’ve worked with an array of businesses—coaches, spiritual teachers, photographers, event planners, non-profits, restaurants, and more.
I now feel very grounded in where my business is at in this moment in time. (While acknowledging that it will continue to evolve—change is the only constant.)
So, in celebration of this journey and the exploration that has led me to this point, here’s a look at how my brand has evolved through the years…
2012
The name Incandescent Creative quite literally came to me in a dream. I woke up one morning and suddenly knew what my company’s name would be.
Not only did I love the way it sounded, but I loved its deeper meaning.
Incandescent is both a type of lightbulb and an adjective that means “radiant, passionate, luminous, brilliant”.
Lit lightbulbs represent bright ideas. Light symbolizes illumination, truth, enlightenment, intelligence, optimism, hope and the divine ✨
I didn’t know it at the time, but these themes would present through my business in much greater ways in the years to come.
The very first Incandescent Creative logo, 2012
In my first logo, I represented this idea of light through light rays emitting from the lowercase ‘i’, as well as the effect of light and shadow on the letters of “incandescent.”
2014
Two years later, I decided to redesign my logo because I found that the original design was not very functional. The graphic treatment of the logotype made it so that it couldn’t be used outside of the oval shape it was placed in.
However, I liked the logo mark icon, so I decided to keep it and just make some slight adjustments; I refined the colors and updated the graphic treatment of the “light rays.”
Since the logo mark is pretty detailed, I wanted something super simple for the type. I chose a classic serif typeface for its high contrast stroke weight—a subtler representation of the idea of light and shadow.
Updated logo mark icon, 2014
The updated typography for the Incandescent Creative logo, 2014I also took the opportunity to expand my brand identity and created a moodboard, brand pattern, and other assets…
Incandescent Creative moodboard
Brand pattern2017
This was when I first received the intuitive ping for incorporating spirituality into my business. However, I had no idea how that would manifest yet.
Soon after, I was recruited for an in-house design job at a tech company, and despite big ideas and my intentions for stoking the fires of Incandescent Creative, I ended up taking a three year hiatus.
Juliet = my business & Romeo = me, circa 2017–20202020
After undergoing a spiritual awakening in 2019, I was feeling the call to return to my business.
However, I knew I would have to rebuild from the ground up. My former business model didn’t feel aligned with my newfound self-awareness, consciousness, and greater sense of purpose.
Plus, copycat brands started popping up using the same business name with an eerily similar logo…
It was time for the next evolution of my business.
Little by little, I built the Incandescent Creative you see today.
The current Incandescent logo focuses on one of my main loves: typography. Like the earlier branding, this logo uses a serif font with high contrast strokes to visually represent light and shadow. But this new typeface is more modern, elegant, and interesting. It features soft curves in its letterforms (notably in the lowercase r, a, and c), yet the base of the serifs feel solid and grounded—sure-footed. It’s a beautiful symbol of the embodiment of masculine and feminine energy, a balance of yin and yang, wholeness—a reminder of the duality in all things. ☯︎
Incandescent Creative logo, 20202022
10 years later and my purpose and vision are clearer than ever. The foundation I have built feels solid and the future feels expansive.
In some ways, I feel like I am just getting started.
In numerology and the tarot, the number 10 signifies an ending as well as a beginning. I’m completing a ten-year cycle, full of experimentation, lots of learnings, and a solidifying of what feels most aligned and true for me. At the same time, I am entering a new cycle. One that holds so much potential.
I’m so excited to see where the road leads from here. Thank you for being part of the journey.
Aho!
Anika
