Branding · Personal identity
ummni
A self-portrait, not a logo.
- Client
- Myself
- Role
- Brand identity
- Medium
- Portfolio & social
- Status
- Active
ummni is the personal brand identity of Ninon Le Pécheur, built as a self-portrait: every colour in the palette was sampled from a photograph of her face, and her freckles, redrawn by hand, live inside the letters of the logotype.
The project
Being both the client and the designer.
Most identities start with a question of evocation: which colour says trust, creativity, closeness? For my own brand, I took the opposite path.
No colour was chosen for what it conveys. Each one was sampled - picked straight from a photograph of my face.
The territory
Concept
Sample,
don't invent.
Every colour comes from a photo of my face.
“I am the mother of what I create.”
umm + ni mother + Ninon
Umm (أمّ) means “mother” in Arabic. Ni are the first two letters of my first name. The name carries creative motherhood - and echoes ummi (أمي), “my mum”, as if the project were answering the one who created it.
The visual system
A system entirely sampled from a photo.
-
Palette
Skin, hair, eyes, freckles
- Skin - cream, main background
- Hair - golden blond, logotype
- Eyes - five iris shades
- Freckles - eight terracottas sampled from a photo
-
Typography
Three typefaces, three roles
- Giaza Stencil - logo only
- Giaza classic - page titles
- Figtree - interface & body text
-
Signature pattern
The freckles
- Hand-drawn from a photo
- Variable opacity, one by one
- A terracotta dot - the constant signature
Applications
The identity in use.
Portfolio, social media, business cards, stationery - the same approach applied to every medium, with one constant rule: the freckle texture never fills a flat area, it lives in the titles and in the margins.
Lessons learned
Being your own client changes everything.
With no brief to interpret, you have to find the line between what is enough and what is never finished enough. The challenge is not convincing a client - it is knowing when to stop.