Celtic Tenor Monogram

I recently had the opportunity to tackle a fun challenge, when I was asked to create a monogram with a Celtic "feel" for an Irish tenor named Paddy Homan from Chicago. Since I have Irish heritage, and grew up listening to The Clancy Brothers & Tommy Makem, I was excited about the job, even though we only had 10 days to get it done.

Monograms are a very personal project, so it was interesting to create possible designs, discuss them with a friend of the client and have him present them to Paddy. Upon starting work, I collected information about Paddy, and his thoughts about the monogram, which would be used on his stationery and possibly on future CD's or correspondence. He wanted something that reflected his Irish heritage, some Celtic knotwork, and possibly an Irish salmon. Thus armed, I spent some time doing rough sketches, playing with the shapes of the two letters: P and H, fitting them together, wrapping them around each other, placing them in a circle or a square, placing design elements beside them. Some possibilities were very complex, some more simple. I then met with Paddy's friends and they chose one to develop more fully. After a day or so of "tweaking" the design, adding type for the name and contact information, getting final approval, I finished the monogram. (I particularly enjoyed drawing that stylized salmon.)

I found a local business that not only printed the letterhead on time and under budget, but took my line drawing and worked their photoshop magic on it. ( The photo attached is my final draft, not the final product.) What took them 15 minutes would have taken me hours with a pen and ink! Another thing to learn how to do in my free time...

In the end, the clients were happy, and I hope to see Paddy's recent CD in the mail sometime soon. He has a lovely voice.