Logo Designs, Business Cards, and When Engineers Go Bad
Andy on May 18th 2007
The issue of our company logo came up again recently because of WWDC. Both Jim and I will be attending this year, and we thought it might be nice to have some business cards to hand out. Unfortunately, we’ve never had real cards printed before, and then there’s the question of our questionable logo, which can be viewed at our site.
I should point out that the current logo was a gift from a client, who simply pitied us, and our non-graphic designing ways. Since we were doing engineering services for them, they didn’t want their clients to think they had partnered with a firm that consisted of four year olds with a bad case of the shakes, when they saw our logo. Anyway, not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but we felt it might be time to upgrade our logo to something more modern and less busy.
A sane person might have taken that as a cue to go hire someone qualified, but not me. Instead, I fired up my copy of Fireworks, the greatest web graphics program ever, and started working on my abomination before God… I mean… business card.
Here’s what I came up with:
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Sorry. I probably shouldn’t have just flashed that up there without some sort of warning. Hopefully no one stabbed their eyes out with a rusty pair of scissors just to get the images out their head. As a community service I give design teachers permission to use these in their classes as what not to do. Just make sure you’ve hidden all the sharp objects and the students are wearing the appropriate eye protection (blindfolds) before exposing them to my designs.
Anywho, after my partners got done whining about their bleeding eyes, we decided we might should hire a professional. So we’re in the process of looking for logo designers, and pricing how much such a thing would cost us. Unfortunately, between the four of us we apparently only know one designer, which somewhat limits our options.
I have to admit, it was a lot of fun doing someone else’s job. I mean, graphic designers have it easy. They just need one of them graphics editor thingies and beret, and they’re all set. I think tomorrow I’ll do someone else’s job. Maybe a neurosurgeon’s. I hear that it’s all the wrists, and last I checked that’s what was connecting my arm to hand. Maybe I’ll get one of those cool bibs they put over their faces when cut open someone’s brains.
Filed in Order N, WWDC | 9 responses so far
Ted May 18th 2007 at 04:38 pm 1
Andy - check out Logo works (http://logoworks.com). They have some nice packages for logo creation, and I know a few people who have used them in the past and have been happy with the results.
Sebastiaan de With May 18th 2007 at 04:55 pm 2
Developers really want design work in this season. I (being a student in Graphic Design) even got a discount for graphic designers now called ‘The War on Bad Design’. I must admit you guys aren’t the only ones who want to get a new logo before WWDC ;).
But hey, if you want more options, feel free to email me. I’m reading your blog for some time now (spare time cocoa developer too) and this just jumped out to me.
Doug May 18th 2007 at 05:07 pm 3
We are a small mac development team as well and found a great (and inexpensive) graphic designer to do a logo and app icons for us. His name is Josh Brigham and he is in Memphis, TN. His website (http://www.newcreationstudios.com) has his contact info… once you get past the flash.
Peter Hosey May 18th 2007 at 05:16 pm 4
I actually like the two on the left. Palatino is hard to screw up.
Martin May 19th 2007 at 03:05 am 5
I have to agree with Peter, the ones on the left are neat.
Maybe if you start from the one on top, size down the “(n)” part a little (I think it’s too small below), and move the personal info up (maybe above the n and right of the open paren) and the company info down (under the O)…
Grain of Salt: I have absolutely no clue about design, and possibly no taste either.
Pierre Bernard May 19th 2007 at 05:17 pm 6
I actually like design C. The catch is that your customers won’t know how to read O(n). So you’ll have to merge design C with design E where “order n” is all spelled out.
That said, you might want to hook up with Mike Rohde. He did the icons for HoudahSpot and HoudahGeo.
tmk May 21st 2007 at 06:52 pm 7
I also really like the two on the left. Especially the lower one even tough my guess is that many people won’t know how to pronounce O(n) (even with the web address)
Nevertheless I think you may want to consider they as a good starting point to be further improved by a professional designer.
= tmk =
Jim O'Connor May 22nd 2007 at 06:37 am 8
As the four year old with the bad case of the shakes there is nothing I can say in my own defense.
Takako Nagumo May 31st 2007 at 03:23 pm 9
Hi, I’m a friend of Elaine’s in New York (she may have mentioned she put up some blinds in my apartment…).
Anyway, you might consider contacting a design school. We’ve worked with a couple of people - an alumni and a current MFA student - from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. The MFA student interned with us did excellent work. If you’re interested, please let me know by email.