Logo design

golfman

Hello everyone,

2 weeks ago I came up with a business idea I've been full steam ahead researching the idea ever since. Without giving the idea away before I'm established, I'm offering a service. I have a big client on standby (a business contact) that will give me constant weekly business. I should be ready to start early next week depending a couple of deliveries. Now I have my bus name registered and my domain registered I need a logo to start moving forward with primarily business cards and shortly a website*(Please see bottom of this post as I have a question about this also)

A quick scout around the net and you can pay anything from £25 to €180 for a logo design. Unfortuantely with them all you have to pay up front before you can see what ideas they can come up with for your brief (I understand why they do this btw as I can imagine there are a lot of timewasters).

Has anyone had any good/bad experiences they wish to share? By paying top wack do you effectively get a better service/design?


*On the website side of things, I know from past experience that creating a website can take time. I was planning on creating a "blog based" website for the interim period so I could at least have something to show what I can do and just so I have something for prospective clients to refer to instead of saying "its getting developed, it'll be online soon." At least now I can say "my website is getting developed, it'll be online soon, but in the meantime I have this in place as a part-time solution."
Does anyone think this is ultimately a bad idea? The first few clients I see will be old contacts anyway.
Can anyone reccommend a good "blog website"? I hear wordpress is the best.....


Thanks in advance for all your help....

YellowSheep

If you pm me more info i will have a go at your logo for free. Re web-site. There are a couple of persons over at adverts and gumtree who do blogs for almost free. Cheers Oliver

IrlDigi

Re Logos.....

I had a recent experience where I paid $15 for 2 logos - too good to be true but I was curious. Result - 3 concepts - all wordart, each concpet was a variation on colour !!!!! Disaster

However I eventually got my 2 logos for $40, this included 3 concepts including interpretation of my ideas, 5 or six modifications.

If you PM me I can share details.

D

antoinolachtnai

You can pay quite a bit more for a logo than that. Like anything else, what you pay will make a big difference to the quality. Whether it is worth it or not is another question that only you can answer. It depends what business you are in and whether it will really make a difference.

If you plan on marketing and growing the business, I would say that your budget is a little small. I'm not saying that you are taking the wrong approach to getting a designer, but if you find someone who is good and who you feel listens to you and who you can work with, don't be afraid to spend a bit more.

Best of luck with the new business.

spidermonkey

Well a lot of people think that a logo is something quick and easy to do and as such they say "sure ill have a stab at it".

Ive spent 5 years going through college (no repeating at all)only to graduate last summer into a recession, anyway... What do I do... graphic design (more print based than web) And at the end of the day, your not paying for a logo, your paying for a well though-out and well executed piece of visual communication that represents what your about.
Depending on the person or company you deal with will have varying results. Some business' are all about getting the work in and out fast to turn about a big profit, as a result the work can be shít.

As an example for my final project last year I had to produce identity and advertising for a company. I spent about 7/9 solid days on the logo (spread over a month), went through about 65 A3 pages of concepts and variations and finally came up with what i consider to be a work of art, an original logotype which is timeless.

What you want is someone to identify the core idea of your product and try to communicate that, and execute it well. Stay away from trends as they rot quickly, focus on the service.

No gradients.

If you want to talk further drop me a PM.
Best of luck,
SM.

lecheile

Hi golfman - I have created a number of 'website' using blogger and found it very easy to use and better than trying to force your site into a template. Have a look at this site http://www.bloggingtips.com/ you can subscribe to a regular newsletter with some handy tips as to how to get more from you blog style website.

best of luck with the venture.

SMPB

We might look at doing your website and throwing the logo and branding in for you??? Take a look at our site and you will see lots of examples of sites that we have already done. <snip>

Give me a ring if you want to take this any further <snip> and ask for Sharon.