"Logo" is awfully close to "loco"

I’ve been going crazy trying to create a logo for my writing.

The high school I went to in New York required students to choose an area of study (like a major), and mine was graphic arts. So although it’s been a long time and my art abilities are rusty, I decided to have a go at making the logo myself.

My first idea was to do something with a crow. Crows are great horror icons, plus I have a special affinity for them because I used to have a pet crow (named Edgar Allen Crow). But I’ve seen many other writers use crows in their logos (including Stephen King), so I was afraid they were an overdone symbol.

My next idea was to do a logo with a zombie. Better, but I write about more than just zombies.

Then I thought about doing something with a skeleton, but all the drafts I did came across to Halloween-ish. But I still liked the idea of bones.

A skull and crossbones is the generic logo for my test run of business cards, but I quickly saw the error of my ways with that decision. A skull and crossbones looks terrific on the business card next to the words, “Dark Fiction Author,” it doesn’t look quite so terrific on the address labels where there’s no explanation: just a skull and crossbones beside my name and address . . . talk about sending up red flags for the US Postal Service! Besides, I’m a horror writer, not a pirate.

Then I had a brainstorm: my old business cards had a hand holding a quill, an excellent visual representation for writer; my new business cards have a skull; what if I combine the two ideas and have a hand dipping a quill into a skull as if the skull were the ink pot? Bingo!

First I tried all-black, just like the logo on my business cards. But that didn’t really do it for me.

Then I tried a little more detail, but didn’t like that, either. I decided maybe the problem with this one was the lack of a lower jaw.

I finally settled on this one: 

I think it's a perfect fit.

The quill represents writing.

The skull represent horror and mysticism, so that covers my horror and fantasy.
And the skull looks as if he might be smiling a little, fitting since some of my work is comedic.

Perfect!

And if you look in the address bar, I even made my first favicon. It, however, needs a little more work. Can you tell it's a skull? Like I said, it needs work.