I’ve been producing theater with my husband Ed as “Fredrick Byers Productions” for some time now, since 2002 I believe.  Now that we are producing a short film I thought it was about time I realize my vision for our production company’s logo, so it may be used in the film’s opening title credits.

I brought my ideas to a graphic design company, and after a week of concepts and revisions, here is the result, the Fredrick Byers logo, in four iterations, color and alternative color, black on white and white on black.  It’s the white on black version that will open our new short film “The Tell-Tale Heart – a musicabre“:

Fredrick Byers gets its name from Ed and my middle names, mine being Fredrick, Ed’s being Byers.  The frog has been my animal ever since I started writing my first musical “Once Upon a Frog” (people still give me “frog” gifts, even people who don’t know about that first musical which started the trend); and Ed has always fancied dragons.  There are plenty of frogs and dragons as artwork and figurines and knick knacks all over our house.

The Elder/Ashkenasi Wedding, 1998

A big mural I created of a frog and dragon decorated the construction tarp covering part of the Quaker meeting house entrance at our wedding, a tarp that would have otherwise been an eye sore.  So yes, frogs and dragons are big parts of Ed and my history.

I have thought for years that the Fredrick Byers logo should be an old-timey type set or calligraphy of a capital F and capital B with a frog and dragon perched or wrapped around the letters, both creatures about to nuzzle the other appreciatively.

And now I’ve got my logo.  I’m pretty happy with it.  Hope you like it too.

One of these days there may be a 10 second animated version, the kind that introduces a movie’s production company; and it will be shown before a full length Fredrick Byers production.  The frog and dragon will emerge to climb onto their positions on the F and B while the main theme of a very particular tune – I know just which one, one of the first melodies I composed for that first musical of mine – plays over the short animated sequence that freezes into the logo.

All in due time.  Right now let’s enjoy the static version of our brand new yet long envisioned Fredrick Byers logo.

I think this alternate color version is my favorite: