What are you asking exactly, are you looking for a font?

yes.

Perhaps I didn't express myself clearly. I'm designing a word mark for an artist. I am to set her name, Shayla in a font - possibly modified - that expresses empowerment, luxury, approachable, contemporary and possibly subtly suggest the Japanese influence found in her work.

any suggestions?

anyone? ???

To give us a start, what have you considered/rejected?

I don’t know if they have any of the qualities you are looking for but I would consider a simple humanist sans, Bliss or Gill (or perhaps Umbra), to contrast with the artworks rather than something that has similar qualities.

Tim

This is the first thing drew up (last image in post) http://jugglingman.blogspot.com/2007/06/intime-art-opening.html
It is loosely based on letter gothic std

It was a very quick draw up, last minute solution to a pressing problem - ignore the horrible 'y' (I'm still a student with much to learn). But that was an idea.

and these three are the ones I've tossed about.

http://i110.photobucket.com/albums/n94/ulysses01/UntitledImage-6.jpg

http://i110.photobucket.com/albums/n94/ulysses01/with.jpg

somehow they are too ... austere and not very memorable. I'm leaning towards letter for some reason.

Here are some examples of other wordmarks I'm sort of looking at that do some of what I hope to do.

http://www.kaizensushibar.com/home.html
too bluntly asian but...

http://www.alexcolville.com/

http://www.hiddenplacestudio.com/

Thank you.

I'm fairly certain that Letter gothic is anything but Asian.

Anyway, I think you're aiming *way* too high -- five "keywords" which appear to be contradictory with each other to the common sense. I wouldn't even know how to unify "empowerment" with "luxury", or "luxury" with "approachability" -- I'd say "luxury" pretty much negates the other two.

If anyone actually pulls it off to deliver something that echoes all your five "keywords" to the majority of the audience, I'd call him a grandmaster of design without any hesitance.

Good point. I'm trying to do too many things. The asian thing is optional. If I have to choose one, then empowerment is the the one.

thanks.

I'm not even sure what you mean by "empowerment". Usually it means the gaining of social-political influence by a group of people with a certain social-political agenda. But that's probably not what you mean.

So it might be better for you to describe what you want to achieve with more than just one word. If I don't know what to associate with the term "empowerment" even when it's spelt out in front of me, I certainly won't know it any better when it's "symbolized" somehow in a wordmark.

I'll use an example.

Woman is stuck in an abusive relationship, never takes the time to get to know herself. One day she's had enough and decides I want to be a (insert career of choice). Having gotten that education and a satisfying career she wants to have the comforts never allowed to her. It's an eff u to the world so to speak, "I'm allowed to be happy". She decides to commission a piece of artwork to celebrate her new found freedom. She hires Shayla because the brand and artwork express what she is feeling.

Does that help clarify things?

I suppose self-empowerment is more accurate.

I've been sketching a little and brewing a lot over this.

I'm thinking of focusing on the single most unique feature of her art, the japanese mon.

Latest doodlings.

http://i110.photobucket.com/albums/n94/ulysses01/Shayla_wordmark2.jpg