Eight options on a notebook page.
In January 2026, my friend Anoop Surendran (a senior UX designer) pitched the idea of making me a monogram for my author byline, Anoop Vijayan. I write fiction on the side, and my second novel was in early planning. I said yes.
A couple of weeks later, on 19 January, he messaged me a photo of his notebook: eight monogram explorations, all in blue marker, numbered 1 to 8. We talked them through and picked option 4: the wordmark where the A and V are formed by repeating the same triangle, once pointing up, once pointing down. It carried both the name and a kind of quiet symmetry.
His agreement was that he'd build the final files in Figma when my book was ready for press. He's busy with client work; this was a friend favour, not a project.
A few months later, I started building this portfolio. I wanted a logo, not a placeholder. Back in 2024, I'd spent six months as a part-time UX designer for a startup, and Anoop Surendran himself is the person who first taught me how to sketch, design, and prototype in Figma. So I picked up the paper sketch and decided to build it myself. Partly to ship the portfolio. Partly as a quiet thank-you.
What you see in the masthead is option 4, redrawn. Same idea, my hands.
