Had to pick between a hand-drawn logo and a digital one for my nephew's lemonade stand

The digital one turned out too clean and corporate for a kid's stand, and the hand-drawn one was a total mess of squiggly lines. I ended up combining them - I scanned his drawing and traced it in Canva to keep the charm but fix the wonky shapes. Any tips on finding that middle ground between kid-friendly and readable?

2 comments

2 Comments

reeseanderson7d ago

My buddy did his kid's school bake sale poster in MS Paint once. It looked like a kindergartner drew it which was actually the vibe they wanted but the spelling was all over the place. I helped him use Google Drawings to trace over the original scribbles layer by layer. The trick is keeping the wonkiness intentional. A slightly crooked line looks charming. A crooked line that has a straight edge next to it just looks like you gave up.

the_caleb6d ago

Think about how this same thing happens everywhere now. Grocery stores have that "farmers market" font slapped on bags of chips that were made in a factory. Coffee shops put a chalkboard menu on the wall even though everything is printed out behind the counter. People are constantly trying to fake the messy homemade feel without actually being messy or homemade. You nailed it with that scan and trace method because it keeps the real kid energy while making sure people can actually read "lemonade for 25 cents." What kind of stuff have you seen other people try to fake this way?