Sean Farrell is a multi-talented creative who started out in the world of logo design under his moniker of “Penflare”. Learning and adapting fast, Sean developed his own unique style over the 2 years since he started out and created a name for himself branding clean and viable identities for businesses. Recently Sean, a great guy I first came across on Twitter, got married to his sweetheart of 8 years and rebranded his own identity from Penflare to Brandclay. He is religious, loves movies, reads comics, bakes cupcakes and today he takes time out to chat with us about his signature style, about the rationale behind his own rebranding and where he sees himself in a couple of years from now.

Thanks Sean for doing this interview. We welcome you to the Brandstack blog and are very excited to know about your new brand.

1. Will the real Sean Farrell please stand up? We all know that you are an excellent logo designer and an all round swell guy, but tell us more about you. Who you really are and what makes you tick?
That is me, Sean Farrell. For those who don’t know me, here goes. I am 23 years old, I was recently married on August 8th this year to my girlfriend of 8 years. I love to watch and play sports, especially hockey (I play forward and goalie). I never took an art (except for the one they made us take), marketing, graphics class in my life. I own 4 franchises of the ice cream company called Dippin’ Dots. I have a Pomeranian dog named Zoey. My favorite ice cream (besides Dippin’ Dots of course is Ben & Jerry’s fudge brownie or Coldstone’s French toast with chocolate chips. I am a movie fanatic and love all the marvel / dc movies. I am a Christian and find that most of my inspiration hits me when I’m reading the bible. The rest, I’ll just leave to mystery. Something that makes me tick is spec designers stealing real designers work.

2. Out of all the disciplines of design out there, what attracted you to logo and brand development? How did you start out in this field?
I started designing in early 2008.  I had no idea what I was doing and designed some pretty horrific stuff (we all start somewhere). Thankfully, I was doing this work for free. I marketed myself on Craigslist for about 2-3 weeks and got some “iffy” jobs. I was told early on (by other designers that I knew) that I was probably going to end up in the print field. A lot of my work included textures, shadows, gradients haha, a common mistake made by many new designers. If it was an option to add anything to that layer, I wanted to do it, I thought the more the merrier. I soon found out it was not the complicated that people wanted, but to simplify the complicated, to make things simple and easy to understand. My designs started becoming simpler, and I then realized my heart belonged to the world of logo design.

3. What is the most rewarding and most frustrating thing about being a logo designer?
I would say the most rewarding thing is having a client being blown away with the designs you give them. I would say the most frustrating thing is lack of direction on the clients end.  It’s never good when they don’t know what they want and pull you in a ton of different directions.

4. How did you chance upon Brandstack? What was your first impression of it?
I came across it when it was known as Incspring. I loved the idea of taking unused ideas/concepts and selling them to potential companies. After designing a logo called “paperfloat” for another company, it went unused and I then uploaded the logo to Incspring. Wes ended up buying it because it fit his exact needs for the change from Incspring to the new and improved Brandstack.

5. You are one of the highest selling designers on Brandstack? How does that feel? How has being on Brandstack affected you as a designer?
It feels good. I can’t take any of the credit though. I really feel like it’s just a blessing from God. I wish I could say that I did something to attract that many sales, but really it’s all him. I love being on Brandstack. I love the community, I love the designers, the buyers. I have gained 2-3 amazing clients from my sales on Brandstack.

6. When designing for a client and when designing for a logo to be put up for sale, what are the key things that you do differently?
A lot more time goes into designing a real logo vs one for sale. Normally when I design one for sale, it’s just an “aha!” moment. There is not a lot of thought towards it, but it is conceptually sound. When designing for a client, a lot of time goes into preparation and planning, such as briefs, mood boards, word mapping, etc.

7. You have recently rebranded from Penflare to Brandclay. Can you walk us through your decision to rebrand and what aspirations you have from your new brand?
The main reason I rebranded was because I was unhappy with my logo(s) for penflare and the connotations attached to the name. When I asked most people what they thought of the word “penflare” thought of a quill pen or a lens flare, both nothing to do with graphic design. I then word-mapped for quite a while and came up with the word “clay.” From there I formed the word “brand” onto it and it seemed to have a nice ring to it, Brandclay.

8. Tell us a bit about your beautiful new Brandclay logo. What was your thought process behind the mark and the colors?
I contacted Jerron Ames for some outside perspective. He developed 3 concepts for me. I liked 2 out of the 3 and after I purchased the concepts from him, I then started toying with the hand forming the b concept and today you can see the final version. The color scheme was changed a couple of times and I’m sure it will change a few more times.

9. Out of all your logos, which one is the most dear to you and why?
I don’t have a favorite, that wouldn’t be fair. But a couple of projects I really enjoyed working on are logoreview, homespun chili, the well, and some others.

10. Which logo on Brandstack created by another designer makes you wish, you had created it?
Ouu this is a tough one. I have 2. First one is definitely Forkwire. Second one would have to be Logomotive’s The Aviator.

11. What and who is your number one source of inspiration and information?
If I’m understanding the question, then I would answer Logopond or Logolounge for inspiration and any of the books published by Rockport for Information.

12. If you could’ve done one thing differently when you started out as a designer, what would that be?
I would not have gotten involved in competition based designing. I didn’t know any better until I read some blog posts by David Airey. It made me learn fast, but a lot of time, energy, thought, concepts were wasted.

13. What makes one marketable as a logo designer, besides good designs of course? Do you have any tips to share with our readers?
Never be satisfied with your work. Naw, a lot of people will say that, and I do think its important to keep striving to get better, but also notice the good things that you do and stay positive. Too many people get down on themselves when they receive negative feedback or criticism, but it will only make you better.

14. Where do you see Sean Farrell in 5 years from now?
I will own my own studio in downtown somewhere with a few other designers/developers.  And for the rest of my life, I’ll be doing what I love.

Thanks Sneh!

Thanks once again Sean. We wish you the very best with Brandclay and we’ll check back with you in a few years and maybe you can share with us a few pictures of your snazzy downtown studio.

Sean’s new website Brandclay is in the works, he blogs about it and other design related stuff on his old website Penflare. He can also be followed via Twitter and his work can be seen on Logopond.

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Sneh Roy is a designer and creative trends blogger. You can follow her @LBOI on Twitter and keep up with her at her site, Little Box of Ideas.