[dmct_1975]

Hi,

This is my first post.... i have been playing around design for a while privately, but now have a job where i can really get stuck into it... here is my logo / style for our company... its a real estate software company...

i have attached logo... (text may not appear under logo)
also a poster of how it may be used and
a mock up of the website idea

thanks for your help in advance

Drew

[minus brain]

As a rule, one should always design in black and white first, and add color later when it's needed. At least thats what I was taught, and it seems an effective strategy for producing a logo thats easily translatable across multiple printed formats. I don't think your logo is really going to work in black and white, and I can't really advise the use of a transparent element, either.

Aside from that, the shapes themselves don't really connect to the name in the way theyre currently arranged. Theyre not really unique or memorable, and I find the colors garish. I dont particularly respond to the "it" portion being crushed by the gray box around it.

The poster: I would run "Office Solutions" up the opposite way so that it reads going toward the logo. As it is, it's leading my eyes off the page when ideally the opposite effect would be desired. I'm assuming the text is FPO, otherwise I don't really understand what it's telling me—are those the services provided by the software or what?

The website: Seems clean to me, withholding that nasty teal bar around "Web Solutions."

[Limbo]

Agree with Minus Brain.

The logo has too much going on. Drop shadow and opacity in a logo are a no no. Keep it simple.

Poster lacks space

Website needs more interest.

OK start.

[Mongoose]

I agree also, to some extent. The website and banner seem bland. The website seems very flat and colorless compared to the logo and poster.

Although the drop shadow makes the text "pop" a bit, get rid of it for the logo.

[brooks]

for everything else there's mastercard.

[MisterSteve]

Originally Posted by brooks

for everything else there's mastercard.

My thoughts exactly.

[Anxious]

Originally Posted by brooks

for everything else there's mastercard.

I thought the same.

[abbasinho]

I wouldn't agree that you should start designing branding in black and white and work from there. Sometimes you're given specific colours in a brief. Pointless mapping it all out in black and white just to change it to colour afterwards - personally i'd go the other way. Get the colours right then adapt it to black and white. I agree that the logo needs to be flexible enough to apply it to anything. That's what I always say to clients.

And it does look like mastercard.

The logo's got to tie in with the company for me - do the shapes behind 'inhabit' mean anything or are they there for eye candy?

[Limbo]

yeah but thats the wrong way to approach it.

Black and white logo design forces you to look at nothing but the form. Colour is a step toward development from that.

I say start lo-fi B&W

[abbasinho]

i've always worked with colours - and i've always told other people to do that. it all boils down to practices and cultures. if you were taught to do something one way that's the way you tend to do things.

[minus brain]

Originally Posted by abbasinho

I wouldn't agree that you should start designing branding in black and white and work from there. Sometimes you're given specific colours in a brief. Pointless mapping it all out in black and white just to change it to colour afterwards - personally i'd go the other way. Get the colours right then adapt it to black and white. I agree that the logo needs to be flexible enough to apply it to anything. That's what I always say to clients.

Whether or not it's in the brief is irrelevent. It's up to the designer to figure out a solution to the problem, and having something like overlapping colors (such as the OP example) is something that's going to prove problematic.

When shapes are overlapping and given differentiation via color, sometimes a knocked out version of the logo is going to be an illegible blob. Like this one.

Seems to me the logical thing to do is design in black and white first, since that's what will inevitably grant you the most mobility with the design. But to each his own, bad design or no.

[Mitch]

Originally Posted by abbasinho

i've always worked with colours - and i've always told other people to do that. it all boils down to practices and cultures. if you were taught to do something one way that's the way you tend to do things.

Limbo is spot on. Start simple, you will push an idea further.

This thread is a classic case of 'trying' to put fluff before concept.

[safe as milk]

the grey box is out of step with the rest

maybe make the background shapes slightly more house shaped - bring the third in line with them - it kind of reminds me of sydney opera house

colours are mastercard