Hi Ron, here is my initial entry for your consideration. I spent some time looking through your photos, and first, I'll say that I love them. I'm a huge fan of good photography (my grandfather was a photographer in WWII, and I'm an amateur myself). It occurred to me that you are really turned on by texture, and your color composition is fantastic. For that reason, I think a grayscale logo would look really nice on your site. You want a strong mark, but you don't want it detracting from your photography.
It's difficult to capture texture in a simple mark, so instead of trying to get too detailed, I decided to use a nonlinear (handcrafted, organic) abstract. You seem to like circular marks by your rankings so far, and it does lend itself well to the concept of lens and elicits the image of a camera. My design has a swirling/spiraling feel to it without being overly geometric, so there's a hint of the traditional photography image of a shutter. But the parts of the mark are bent, and each one could remind the viewer of the letters L or C. As a whole, though, it has a sort of rorshach effect -- the viewer could see all kinds of different things in the mark, which reminds me of your photography (for example, islands on the hull - love it!). Also, the wordmark itself uses typography that helps to illustrate the concept behind your photography, which a somewhat linear (and yet rounded) font for "lens" and a more organic, handwritten font for "craft".
Anyway, I guess that's my schpiel. I'm happy to keep working if you like my style. Also, another thing to note -- this would work well in a solid color, but it can also be reproduced with one spot color, which makes for affordable printing! Thanks so much!
I appreciate your thoughtful comments, and that you took the time to examine my work. I do really love the gray color scheme. Your initial attempt is a little too busy for my tastes, but I think you're on the right path. You considered the 'crafted' nature, which I appreciate.
I am not a big fan of the combination of sans and hand text. It's a little jarring even though both of the fonts are intriguing. I would prefer to use one well-chosen font. My husband is a huge proponent of half-unctual fonts with a large x-height. He told me to tell you that. ;-) (But I like both of the fonts you used above.)
Hi Ron! Thanks for the feedback. I went back to the drawing board to play around with some additional ideas, and I'd love to hear your thoughts. I'm afraid though that I have no idea what a half-unctual font is, though a large (or tall) x-height makes sense to me. "Unctual" does not appear in the dictionary, and it's not a term I've ever heard used before (and I even majored in English!). Do you think you could wrangle an explanation out of your husband?
I reused the sans serif font that I used in my earlier design, and I tried another one too (one that has a taller x-height). I might try the other, more handwritten font with the sort of geometric mark I'm working with now, but I'm not sure how that will turn out. Thanks so much!
#63, #64, #65, #67 are not interesting to me. #67 is a little more interesting, but still not a contender. I like the minimalism of it, but the design doesn't work for me. I have decided that I like the sans font much more than the script font.