The Story Behind the Logo

I recently came across Jenny K.'s link-up about "The Story Behind the Logo". It looked like a fun little link-up, so I decided to get in on the fun! Read on to find out.....

Way back in 2011, I was working for Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools in Charlotte, NC. At that time, there were a lot of shady things going on in that district, and teachers in general were starting to be treated really poorly by the state of North Carolina. I was looking to leave, and also looking for an outlet to debunk many of the injustices I was seeing happen to teachers all over the county.

That's when I started this blog. It was originally less focused on ESOL, and more focused on the teaching profession as a whole. After a few months, I started focusing my posts more on ESOL, and renamed the blog "The ESOL Odyssey".

Soon after, I got a job offer in Maryland and we packed up and left North Carolina. When we first arrived in Maryland, my hubby was unemployed and we were paying rent on our apartment here in addition to mortgage on our house in Carolina. I was thinking about ways to supplement our income almost constantly.

My first job here in my current district was as the only ESOL teacher at a K-6 school. One day I was searching for lesson ideas and materials when I came across Teachers Pay Teachers. On a whim, I decided to sign up. At first, I signed up just using my name.

As I began to grow my store, I started to think a lot about branding. I knew a lot of the sellers on TpT were using their blog name as their store name, but that didn't feel right to me. I loved the name "The ESOL Odyssey", but I didn't want to limit myself by giving the impression that my items were ONLY for ESOL teachers. I wanted to convey the idea that while they were created with ESOL students in mind, they were really great for developing academic language in all students.

I settled on "Tools for Teachers by Laurah J." At that time, my logo was a photo of me that incorporated my logo from The ESOL Odyssey so that people could still make the association between my store and my blog. Here's what my first logo looked like:

Then, during the last site redesign, TpT went to round logos. I don't like my photo inside a round border because I felt that it made ME look round, too (Vanity! Laurah is thy name!). So, I decided to use an avatar that had been created previously for another purpose. The avatar did a great job of capturing my quirky personality. I decided I wanted to continue incorporating my little world symbol as well, so I added that next to the avatar and wrapped the name of my store around the top and bottom, to get my current logo:

Hop on by to learn the story behind the logo for these other great teacher-authors!