This feels too "disney" for us, or perhaps "Pirate's Dinner Adventure" (a cheesey dinner-theater pirate show). We need to look a bit more professional (even if we are using a pirate or nautical theme.)
We like #51 a lot, though we want to try tweaking a few things.
1) Can you rotate the circle slightly? We like the visual reference to a "compass" -- but the white rectangles need to rotate so they're on the correct compass points. I needs to rotate clockwise just a tiny bit, so the top rectangle is right at 12 o'clock (or zero degrees).
2) Could you also try another version that adds small compass points on the circle, just to reinforce the compass reference? I'm concerned it might be a bit cluttered to do this, so it should be very subtle--maybe just small triangles at 0, 90, 180, and 270 degrees, right on the outside of the circle?
3) We need the word "Alumni" to be in the same font and same size as "Emerald Bay"... Can you show us a few options? (One might be to put "Emerald Bay" at the top and "Alumni" at the bottom?). Not sure what layout will work best, since it's a long name, but we need all three words to have similar importance.
After some discussions amongst the board of directors, the decision has been made to pursue a slightly different tack--though we're definitely in the right direction stylistically.
We have used one specific "Pirate with his arms crossed" image over the years, and we think that swapping the ship in your logo for an *updated version* of that Pirate would look really good.
We like the "compass rose" idea and want to keep that in... So it's just about updating the pirate, making the logo look fresh and current.
OK downloaded the newsletter you sent me! So.... I'll work on the pirate icon and swap it with my ship image and see how this works out....I'll have something for you tomorrow [estimating the time difference!] and we'll talk again!!