Hi Virgil Alexander, Thank you for an invitation and please sorry for delay. Here is my first submission for you #6 If you have any suggestion, I would be happy to hear.
Thank you for entering Bordo! I’m honored; you’re definitely a heavy hitter on this site. I have never done this before so would you mind helping me with some of the parameters involved? I know that I need to give you feedback so that you can tweak designs, but I worry that if I give you too many suggestions and requests for slight tweaks that I might overdo that and make the process too much work for you. I have a feeling that I will want to say "try this, and try that" just so I can see it different ways and hopefully come up with the best design for me. I like to look at multiple options, so feel free to tell me if I am going too far in that direction. I am now learning about how the ranking system works, and I want you to know that any revisions you make will stay on my final list so that you will at least get a point for those individually tweaked designs. Point is, I won't stick any of your designs in the "Not Interested" file.
With that being said here are some requests and questions concerning #6 & #8:
The blue tones in these two entries are different then what I had in mind. The "Royal Blue" that I used in the old logo is actually one of the few canned colors that are available within Microsoft Word. I like it and it is close to my vision, but I have slightly different version of "Royal Blue" in mind that I think would give my logo more punch. How can I communicate that exact version of "Royal Blue" to you? Should I pick it out on the web and then send you a web address? Or could you direct me to a place to look where I could give you a specific name or color #? If I could identify that in some way it would also make it easier for other designers in the contest because everyone would be on the same page. Would you mind helping me with that?
I appreciate you starting out by trying to work with my old “Hi-Tech” logo. I’ve never been crazy about it but it really does have value after 20 years so I’m hoping someone will come up with a creative way to use it that looks updated and professional. My old logo had a boarder around the letters that makes them appear to be a larger font size, #6 doesn’t have that boarder and so the letters look a little “skinny” which is different than before. #8 gives the same impression of size because of the shadowing so I like better. But I can see why you left the border off of #6 because of the background. Maybe the lettering should be a slightly larger font size on #6?
I like the idea of the entire logo being incased in a solid geometric shape, almost like a stamp. #6 & #4 have that quality, but I’m not sure if a straight up rectangle is the best way to do that. The more I keep staring at #6 I think that something might work out with a rectangle, but you might want to try some other background shapes.
In that regard I think that the entire logo or as much as possible should be encompassed by the shape. So basically “Austin” and “Restoration” should be inside the stamp.
Now I don’t know what to do about the tag line. But we definitely want “Restoring lives after a loss” in there somewhere. It would be great if the tag line was inside the stamp, but that might make the stamp too busy and loose “punch”.
While I like the “stamp” idea, I would love it if you could explore some other outside the box ways to use the old “Hi-Tech” logo in a different way. Maybe Austin could be written in the same font as the old “Hi-Tech” with Restoration under them? Anything different and new that you could come up with would be welcomed.
Also, you have the option to get away from my old “Hi-Tech” logo if necessary. You might come up with some completely new design that I just can’t resist. So feel free to play with that.
I really do appreciate you joining in this process with me. I will look carefully at anything you send me because your work is clearly respected.
Thank you Virgil for very helpful and detailed feedback! I will continue to work and will submit new ideas as soon as I finish. Please feel free to provide feedback as much as you can. On that way you will encourage designers to follow your vision on best possible way.
About the Royal Blue, try to use this site http://kuler.adobe.com/# from where you can pick values of any color you like. Try to use search button, and when you find shade of blue that you like, just copy its value (rgb) and paste it in your contest. You will be also able to adjust picked color using the color sliders from the kuler site.
You can rank all designs if that will help you to compare them. But at the end, only first ten ranked will receive points. Withdrawn designs as well as the one, who are not match your needs, should be moved to "Not Interested" column. Designers will not be offended by it. It only can help to us, to see what kind of style do you looking for and for what you are not interested in.
I hope that I helped. If you have any other question or concern, feel free to let us know.
Thanks Bordo, I got the color thing figured out and I posted the Pantone numbers in the comments section of my brief. I also put a couple of .pdf files with two slightly different versions of the old "Hi-Tech" logo on there to replace the Word Doc. I figured that would help with cut & paste work, but you've already gotten that done.
Can't wait to see what you've got coming down the pipe.
Thank you Virgil and please sorry for delay! If you are still looking for new designs, here is one more from me #96 I am working on your contest and I have couple of new ideas, that I will submit during the day.