S.E.A. Medical Systems, Inc.Logo Design Contest

Really great start and nice logo designs in the first 22 hours. I was going to leave my computer at home this weekend when we go away as a family but with such exciting work just starting, I am going to take it with me instead so I can give feedback at any opportunity. Looking forward to seeing the refinements and additional ideas you have. Great work!

Some general comments I am hearing from my colleagues: Great designs, nice options to pick from - no consensus on specific designs yet but - periods/dots between the initials SEA are less attractive than leaving the lettering clean and counting on all caps to communicate initials. This probably means that all caps "Medical Systems" should probably include lower case letters but actually some of the all caps versions look very nice - it probably depends on the strength and size of the font used.
Graded or solid font colors both seem to be working. Dark blues to blue-green also all seem attractive.
The accompanying symbol is perhaps the biggest challenge. We are certainly liking versions of a wave, like we have in our current logo but it has been suggested that adding something a little more medical might be more relevant to our business (or leaving it off entirely). If we go with a wave, I don't think anyone has nailed what we would like yet. Our current top 4 (#40, #36, #11, #13) all have elements we like but we also find inspiration in the ying/yang designs in #15, #17, #29. Abstracting that to hint at opposing waves or creating a 4-fold symmetry so a medical cross could be hinted at might be really exciting.
There is less interest in a three dimensional logo. Most of the companies we do business with have two-dimensional logos that are quite simple and we would fit in better following suit.
The lettering should be strong enough to stand alone without any symbol - we will be looking at the submissions particularly carefully to be sure the logo is strong and distinctive without a symbol, even though we want to have a symbol with it. #12 is a good example of strong lettering that works great without a symbol. If we get a design we like with lettering alone, we are not wedded to having a symbol - that could be enough.
I am trying to get on as often as possible and provide comments to participating designers. Thank you for all your submissions already. There are many that we feel are very much on the right track to a great logo for us. Keep up the good work.

Great to see some new designers join in with some new ideas. There are a couple we have been thinking of ourselves, for better or worse. One is to bring some kind of medical symbolism into the logo. Anything from a shield to a medical cross to whatever. As a colleague put it, we have the perfect logos for a scuba diving shop. That is certainly consistent with our original design and logo which we have suggested as a starting place for everyone and we appreciate how much everyone has riffed off of that - to great effect. And we may end up going that direction. But before we finish the contest, we want to make sure we didn't overlook something that would have been better for us in the long run since it would be a better indicator of our business.

By the way, there are so many designs that are already so much better than what we are replacing - thank you all for your efforts. We can't wait to see what the next couple of days will bring.

This is becoming harder and harder to rank because of all the great designs. I am so impressed! It seems like there are 20 designs or more that work and 100 that are better than the logo we have! I'll keep ranking as often as I can - at least one more time tonight and a couple tomorrow.

We have so many good entries that we do not plan to extend the contest. We will decide between all the entries we receive after the end of the contest in 5 hours. We are very impressed by the caliber of all of you designers - excellent designs. We would be proud to have any of at least 50 to 100 of these designs. What an impressive creative effort on your part.

down to the wire and very competitive - we will post final rankings within a day or two of the contest end so don't be dissuaded by what you see now. I have ten judges to confer with before final rankings and winner are chosen. But what fantastic work from you all!!!

one minute to go...

WOW! Unbelievable quality of work and creativity even though we came in with a logo and stuck with the overall themes, we saw was a tremendous number of outstanding and creative designs.

I have 15 judges who will be providing feedback over the next 24 hours to select a winning designer. The current rankings can change because very few of those judges have looked at todays entries which were outstanding! So stay tuned and we'll try and get final results in the next day.