Elemental Food, initial logo designs

Though we'd thought the chef's-knife-in-anvil idea was interesting, it quickly became apparent once I started that there just wasn't a good way to work out the proportions, so into the dustbin of history it went. So that narrowed it down to three basic ideas, the simple EF with fork, the branding-iron style square type with integrated fork, and the skillet. I had high hopes for the branding iron, but upon further consideration we decided that the fork was the most common icon used in food logos, so perhaps it wasn't as strong. Additionally, long skinny logos present usage constraints that more square or round logos do not (since at a given width the text is way smaller), so that was another strike against it. 

I had a real soft spot for the E | F designs, especially the horizontal one; I thought the subtle texturing on the fork fit the philosophy and the contrasting type communicated both "substantial" and "elegant," which are two characteristics of Josh's cooking skill. In the end, however, the graphic power of the skillet won out; circles, especially solid ones can be compelling even in small sizes, and also the skillet is a more unusual icon in the business, which was another point in its favor, and it still uses the contrasting type that I thought worked well for the other designs. 

So once we settled on the skillet, the next step was tweaking the precise releationship between text and skillet, and then seeing how the logo would work on business cards.