Vera Cruz - personal logo

UPDATE: the final, final version:

Here's an updated version of my logo. I felt like the previous version had too many issues to fix. I was really struggling with the V. I wanted to create some consistency between the V and the C. What do they have in common? What can I draw out? I felt like I was forcing both to look similar with that curve at the top. It wasn't working. And I felt like the whole piece was standard and boring. In this updated version, I wrote with more of slant, freeing myself from the grid sheet I was using. I thinned out the final swoosh in the V and tried to emphasize the consistency between the C and the Z. 

And actually, I'm not done. I think there are issues with negative space. I like the openess of the C but that's a lot of negative space compared to the tight squeeze in the V. I also see a few varying widths and angles in the transitions and a few places where I can I can simplify the forms. I'm at a bit of a loss as to what I should do with the V. It's my last name and I've never paid attention to how I wrote it until now. :-X

I think I managed to get all of my handles vertical and horizontal. For as long as I've used Illustrator, the NWES technique was certainly an eye opener.

Initial sketches. I felt like I all over the place, struggling to find a single direction that I liked.

Here was my first take. I lost a lot of fluidity during the vector process and there were issues with consistency so I started over.