I was asked to create a custom illustrated logo design for the city of Bonham, Texas to celebrate their 175th birthday. From the start I hoped that if the design worked well for the yearlong celebration it might continue to serve them after the year ended. I felt that the logotype would be the element that could carry on since the town really needed one. Thankfully the design was well received and in 2024 the wordmark as well as the illustrated graphic were all adopted as the official city brand.

The illustration started out more sharp and clean but I shifted to a more traditional pen & ink illustrated style because it fit the historical vintage look we all wanted. The graphic has a lot going on but each element in the drawing has meaning to the town’s 175 year history. It features a 1837 frontier fort called Fort Inglish that the original town settlement grew around. The settlement was first named Bois D’Arc after the trees and creek they settled by so those are included in the graphic. Being the county seat, it also shows the recently restored Fannin County courthouse rising up behind the trees.

All this is pretty exciting to me personally since I’ve had several generations of grandparents on both my mother and father’s sides that lived in that area for many years. Some of them moved on to Dallas or beyond and some never left and are buried in Fannin County. So here I am creating a custom illustrated logo design celebrating the 175 year history of the town they did business in over 179 years after they first rolled into Fannin County.