Dr. Sam Lam Art

Meridian Whole Health Logo Designed by Dr Sam Lam

I have designed so many logos for so many tenants who never became tenants that I have no idea why I made so many for these imaginary figures.  I guess my artistic sensibility must be expressed at all cost.  No, please do not bombard me with requests.  I am now actually simply too busy to make any logos for anyone, including myself.  This logo is supposed to be a G for someone whose name now escapes me because it was so many years ago or perhaps I have forcefully tried to forget all of the shadowy individuals who almost became tenants in my building.  haha!

Ku Aesthetic Dentistry Logo by Dr Sam Lam

Although Dr. Ku ultimately went with his own designer, I really love this design on multiple levels.  First, it is a great use of negative space:  both in terms of using the box edges to define a border of the letters K and U as well as the use of white on black (or light on dark).  I also like the increasing curved elements that are both stylistically pleasant but also serve a functional benefit of expressing the letters for KU.  This one was really fun to design.

Ivital Logo designed by Dr Samuel Lam

I enjoyed making this logo for a tenant that unfortunately did not survive the economic downturn.  In this logo, I was working with the I and V obviously but made it into an abstract person.  Now, let me clarify, this is NOT a design that has a person with his or her hands in the air.  That design is so pedestrian that almost everywhere you look, you see some form of it.  This alludes to the presence of a svelte person but it remains a total abstraction.  I like the orange color for this logo for some reason.  It just hit me as working.  Color is such a huge part of what I do and how I see the world.  I recently asked for some orange accent walls for my condo.  When it saw it up, I immediately recognized that the color simply did not work.  It was just too orangey and creamy.  It needed to be a darker brown orange for the color to have worked more tastefully in that setting.  I think and see in color.  Ok, I digress.  Anyway, this was a fun logo to work on.

Ikaika Hawaiian Vital Juices Logo designed by Dr Sam Lam

I like how I have created so many logos for businesses of my tenants that never either took off or did not survive in my building.  Call it my generous spirit or my desire to unleash some artistic frustration.  Whatever it is, I have designed too many logos.  I even came up with the name for this company.  I was looking to create a very organic looking piece that represented Hawaii.  The logo is a simplified fish nibbling downward on some algae or something.  It also could be likened to a leaf with a hole bitten in it.  Both motifs are about nature.  The name Ikaika means strength, and I chose it both for its funny sound and the fun of saying it, “Eeeka-Eeka”.  In addition, the meaning of strength was intended to describe something that you would get when you imbibed these all-natural juices, at least that was my intention.  I chose the color of purple for some reason, again no concrete reason but it just seems to evoke what I was trying to create here.

Permaderma Logo designed by Dr Sam Lam

I came up with the name and logo for this short-lived permanent makeup service in my building.  The name came from a contraction of the concept of permanent dermal enhancement, or tattooing.  I decided that the shortened name, Permaderma, was both playful and catchy.  When I created the logo, I used an eyebrow as my starting inspiration (since the makeup artist would be working on one’s eyebrows as one of her principal tasks) and by interlocking the two eyebrows, a ying yang concept is created.  In addition, if you look carefully, you will see the P and the D of the perma and derma in small letters formed by the encircling elements.  I love tone on tone color pairings.  In fact, I have used a lot of tone on tone pairings in the paintings that I have created.  These two shades of magenta in this logo are so similar that they look almost the same but still are very distinct in their color.  If you notice, the pinker and thicker stroke of the portion derma matches the accompanying d-like swoosh of the eyebrow.

Pacifica Logo by Dr Sam Lam

This was a logo that I designed for a cafe that was going to be in my building but never came about.  A chiropractor in my building used the logo for a while when she was in my building with a name that I created for another business, Nucleo, which as you see the trend did not materialize.  (Fortunately, I have many successful businesses in my building including mine!)  I created a logo that would celebrate an organic feel (hence the green) along with the symbols looking organic in some abstract way (maybe peas?)  Also, the union of two reflecting images refers to the marriage of East and West, which would have been the concept for the cafe.  The name I came up with is not that original to be honest but I like it anyway!

Nucleo Logo by Dr Sam Lam

Here is a name and logo that I designed for a heart health and imaging center during the early days when I was putting together Willow Bend Wellness.  It was something that never made it past the drawing board but I loved working on this logo.  Like all my logos except the one for the Spa at Willow Bend, I created them on Adobe Illustrator.  I think the shape and color of this logo are rather self explanatory so I will end pontificating here on my design work.

Invena Laser Vein Center Logo by Dr. Sam Lam

I created this logo design for the laser vein center upstairs in my building.  I like the name invena because it had several layers of meanings.  In vena in Italian means literally inside the vein, which is rather appropriate but also colloquially means “a bright future”, and I liked the positive connotation.  Finally, when put together obviously invena looks like “invention” or something imaginative, which every artist loves!   The macron placed over the e helps indicate that you pronounce the e as a long e but also it is a cool artistic, stylistic element.  If you look carefully at the logo, the three color arcs signify the “L” for Laser, the “V” for vein, and the “C” for center.  I liked stacking them to make them into a more architecturally interesting piece, almost an asterisk if you will.  I also restrained the color palate to just two shades of blue, which also were chosen for the blue that would appear in a vein.  This is actually one of my favorite logos.

Correnta Logo by Dr Samuel Lam

I came up with the logo and name for this business that was planning to come into my building that would feature micro-current technology for skin therapy.  Hence, I thought the name correnta had an italian, artistic flair to it and so did the logo.  Obviously, the gradient and the point design with wavy current like elements embedded within signify both the technology but also the energy that would be imparted from that technology.  I chose the blue-gray-green color simply because it seemed to work well for what I was feeling.

Anti-Aging and Vitality Logo designed by Dr Samuel Lam

I love this logo!  I originally created it in rose and red colors for a previous branch of skin therapy I had dedicated to mesotherapy called MesoYouth.  The shape of the M and the Y can be found in the flowered design. However, when AVC came into my building, I could not stand their original logo, which was the detestable jumping jack man (man with raised arms), as I like to call it that plagues most logo designs out there.  Instead, I replaced the colors to a more gender neutral color that I think works for them since they appeal equally to male and female baby boomers.  I had also fun using the ampersand in contrasting color and size.  I am so glad and proud that AVC decided to go with this logo.  Every time I go upstairs and look at it displayed on the glass, it gives me a deep sense of aesthetic pleasure.