Here are some of my concepts. I've gone for something that's fairly clean and simple, yet striking. Creating an icon that works well within the logo or as a stand alone element, one that can be used for things like favicons or watermarks.
The logos are 100% vector so will scale well to any size, and works well in full colour, B&W and on coloured backgrounds if needed,
It would be my pleasure to work up any variations so please do say. I look forward to your comments or thoughts.
#5 - Our top choice so far. However, the text of the full name is so small that it is hard to read. At the same time, perhaps the main star could be a little smaller proportionately. We would be interested in darker variations of the colors. Perhaps more of a burgundy for the red. Darker gray-blue. Silver for the gray.
#3 - The star looks like a little man figure.
#4 - How would this look without the box around the star?
Thank you for all of your new designs. We like the new blue and red that you use in #8 and #9. Can we use the new blue, the new red and the old gray/silver from #5?
We blew up the entries 40% and are still a little concerned about readability. We will be using this logo often on letterhead. Can we make it more horizontal? We like having "National Association of Veterans' Research and Education Foundations" on two lines rather than three.
Also, can you recommend a font that would make the full name more readable?
We appreciate your providing variations on #4 in #10, #11, and #12, but we have decided that we are definitely prefer the star design that is used in #5, #8 and #9.
Thanks again and we're looking forward to seeing more!
Many thanks for the additional direction and feedback.
With these latest options, I've used the red, blue and grey as per your comments. And I've also worked in a more horizontal format, with the wording over two lines.
Each new option using a different font for the text. What I've done to keep consistency, is use a heavier or bolder option for the NAVREF, and then a lighter or clearer option for the full name text.
Each font is slightly different in style. And I think some showcase the wording better than others. For me I personally feel #18 and #20 stand out the clearest.
PS: another option which could help the clarity is to change the colour from grey to the dark blue. I like the grey, as it balances it out from the icon, and puts focus on the NAVREF ... However if we want both to stand out, making it blue could work :-)
These options are great! The star is perfect at this point. We agree with you about #18 and #20. We prefer #20 just because the font is a little more different from what we have now, which we like. Would you mind showing us an example with the dark blue instead of the gray, as you described in your latest comment?
Thank you for all of the options. We're still trying to decide which we like best. We appreciate you trying something new with Entry #36, but it's too busy for us. We like the way #29 and all of its variations are simple but still dynamic. If you have any other ideas along that line, we'd love to see them!
Completely understand ... I'm also a fan of simpler! I've always believed if your logo works well in B&W (for things like faxing / copying), then its a strong logo and will work in colour.
I think we've decided that #30 is our favorite of all the designs you've shown us, although we're also still interested in #5. The only issue with #30 is that the small silver stars fade with printing etc. Do you have any suggestions about how to ensure that they're always clear and visible?
Thank you for the additional comments ... Apologies if any small errors, I'm checking this remotely via my phome :)
To answer your question, I think we could try a few directions:
1 - we could darken the grey. 2 - we could enlarge them slightly. 3- we could change the colours around. In other words make the larger inner red star grey and the outer ones red or blue. 4 - we could switch the outer red and blue elements around so change one of the red ones to grey ad then change the smaller stars as per above 5 - not sure if this would look good, but we could put a thin line around all elements and make it a darker version of that particular colour. So the small light grey stars would get a darker grey outline thereby enhancing it when used small
Personally I'd probably change the colours around so the smaller stars are a red or blue and move the grey to other elements.
And here are some variations based on my comments above :)
#68 - I've changed the outer small stars to dark blue #69 - Inner larger star to the grey, outer ones to red and blue #70 - moved the grey outer element to the left, inner star grey outer red and blue #71 - kept the outer stars grey, but made them progressively darker shades, and also larger #72 - as per original however has added an outer line to each element - darker shade of that colour
Thank you again for all the variations. Could we please see #71 or #69 with a more stylistic, sharper star? We can't tell if the white inner star is a little puffy or if that's just an optical illusion that comes from the outside shapes.
Also, if you didn't see, we got our top five phase extended since it fell on the weekend, so we have a couple more days.
I hear what your saying, and I think it is a bit of both - slightly puffy but also an optical illusion, as its a standard angled star.
But that said - here are a few variations on the same design: #89, #90, #91 and #92 With each one I've tweaked it slightly differently - its subtle but there are changes :) Each one has (hopefully) a sharper star.