Thoughts on Our New Logo
 

We're exploring new logo options for my wife's photography business and I'd love to hear your thoughts on any of them.

Hi Travis,

The first one instantly stands out as it's bolder, but I am not sure about the positioning of the 'beyond ordinary'

The second does nothing for me

The third seems an inbetween and nicely balanced.

I don't like the forth

or fifth.

I would say something between the first and third!

On a side note, how did you come up with this name!

Cheers

I like the 1st but I'm a bit puzzled about the 'beyond ordinary' - to me it says 'really really ordinary' - like the super hero called mediocre man. I know what you're trying to say - beyond memorable, beyond nice, beyond great - I dunno, maybe it's my warped view of the language.

at the moment I'm beyond tired.

I personally like the first and the fourth.

When we design a logo, these are the five elements we use when evaluating our designs:

Is it describable?
Is it memorable?
Is it effective without color?
Is it scalable? (i.e. works on a billboard or on a tiny lapel pin)
Is it appropriate? (i.e. fits your business style/image)

I would say your logo meets all of those criteria. While the whole logo with text may not work on a lapel pin, the stylized butterfly would. I'm just guessing the last criteria applies - if you show up to shoot with leather, tattoos and piercings, then maybe not...

I'd say between your five designs, it comes down to personal preference. I prefer number five.

Thanks for all the comments so far everyone! Chris, we definitely have plans to have variations of the logo for different purposes, including instances where we use the butterfly design only. That was a good list you put together there.

Basically this stems from the fact that the average photographer shoots really ordinary, uninteresting images. My wife doesn't do that, so I came up with the idea that what she shoots is beyond ordinary .. or outside of the ordinary.


John - not really sure how we came up with the name. It was like 5-6 years ago. We spent a lot of time and energy trying to come up with something, and then somehow stumbled across the word Serendipity, and once we double-checked the meaning, it really fit.

I like 1st & 4th. I love the name, logo, however not so sure about "beyond ordinary" doesn't form a descriptive picture in my mind that links to what you are trying to say.

Travis, I think the problem with "Beyond Ordinary" is that it can be interrupted two ways. I know what you are trying to say but the dual interpretation may not serve you well. You may want to think of a superlative phrase that has no ambiguity with respect to the positive statement that you want to make.

Travis, why not just say "outside the ordinary" ?

Travis
To me the 4th one is the most elegant!

Stelios

I like the 1st and 4th (if i'm not too late to chime in :)

I think the fonts on those are nice and clear and crisp. Love the use of the "s's" in the butterfly. I see what others are saying about the "beyond ordinary" though. Could you just simply say "extraordinary"? I think thats more along the lines of what you are trying to say. Great job on the logos!

travis

i think the tag line really speaks to the demographic that you currently work with. my understanding is that your trying to move out of that and into a higher-end market. if thats the case, i would look at a different way to speak to them.

some put 'best wedding videos in _____' on their site, and for the most part they fall far short of reaching that claim. what does it do to their branding to make such claims and not come close to backing them up?

within the wide world of photography, are the images strong - some certainly are - are they extraordinary - i think that would be a stretch. your work is worth more than what your charging, but your branding in marketing doesn't help convey that. to me, it actually does the opposite and somewhat reinforces it.

with that being said, we probably put more value into this side of things than many do, so perhaps i am over analyzing things - but i do think you can make a stronger impact if you rework things.

P.

Thanks everyone for responding, and kudos to Dawn for catching the "S" forms in the butterfly.

It's somewhat amusing to me that the discussion has turned to the 'beyond ordinary' tagline. I didn't expect that, lol. Our website is already located at 'www.beyondordinary.net'. Also, our experience with the tagline has been awesome for years. We've received a lot of compliments on it from couples and vendors, which is something I never really expected when I came up with it. So although I sincerely appreciate the thoughts on the tagline, we'll definitely be keeping it. d;-)


Patrick, I'm not quite sure where you're coming from since Still Motion doesn't even have a tagline as far as I know. I don't see anything on the website or blog anyways (unless you count the 'photo+cinema'). I guess I don't really see how 'beyond ordinary' applies to our current market but not to a higher end market. Are you saying that it's better to not even have a tagline if you're going for a higher end market? If so, then I have to disagree.

Also, 'beyond ordinary' doesn't just apply to the images we capture (although I do think my wife's images are beyond what ordinary photographers produce). It applies to every aspect of our business. For example, we don't interact with our couples in the same ordinary way that almost everyone else does. We pride ourselves on offering a completely different and 'un-ordinary' type of experience. That's why the tagline is so important in my opinion, even if we're tapping into a high end market.

Maybe I've misunderstood you, and if so, please feel free to help me understand. Thanks!

Hi Travis,

Sometimes you just have to go with gut instinct. I think you have great ideas and logo!, and raw talent which money cannot buy.Wish you much success with the photography side.

Cheers.

#1 seems hard to read with the butterfly going through the text. Also the serif's on the font somewhat clash with the smoothness of the butterfly. May be? well any it seems a more scriptish font is needed, or at least something less harsh / blocky.

I like the idea of the butterfly inbetween the letters, but I don't know how that plays out in scaling, etc.

It is a toss up for me on the rest. They all look great!

Thanks, Jason. My first thought when we got the original design (the first logo) was exactly the same as yours. I don't like that the butterfly element interacts with the type since both are dark and there's no real contrast between them. To me it makes it harder to read, especially since the letters are so close together.

And to be honest, we're really shooting for modern and somewhat minimalist, and the first logo just feels too bold and busy to me and doesn't offer any interesting contrast.

I prefer the 2nd because of how the type has this modern minimalist feel, especially since I increased the kerning and spread the letters farther apart. I also like how the type feels lighter than the butterfly, so the logo has an interesting contrast to it. What I don't like is how long the logo ends up being. Coming from a past design background, I always preferred more squarish logos because they are easier to incorporate into other designs. Long logos can be a challenge.

On that note, I think that logo is becoming even more appealing to me since it does have a less traditional 'squarish' design. In a way it represents that we're different, and I think the challenges we'll face with incorporating it into future designs may actually lead to better designs as a result .. because we'll have to take a different approach instead of the tried-and-true approach.

If any of that makes sense ... d;-)

Thanks for the comments, Jason!

[QUOTE=Travis Cossel;1153087]Thanks everyone for responding, and kudos to Dawn for catching the "S" forms in the butterfly./QUOTE]

Dang . . I was thinkign about mention that, but I've been told my my graphic designer (a full time freelance designer) to not mix graphics with text unless it is absolutely critical to the theme / design because it makes printing harder in certain situations.

#2 & #5 are lighter and cleaner designs but none of them are particularly heavy.

#2 gets my vote. It's the only one where your name isn't overpowered by the butterfly. However, I would lessen the spacing between the individual letters and I would offset the "Beyond Ordinary" to the left a bit, so that it does not align with the end of your name. Also, this is the thinnest (vertically) of all the logos, so it will fit nicely anywhere. Finally, having the butterfly within the name almost hides the "SS" that jumps off the page at you in the other logos. This is cooler because it will hide from some people only to be found at a later date, and then they'll think, "Oh, that's neat. I didn't even notice that before," much like the hidden arrow in the FedEx logo. (Am I the only one who went for over a decade before having that one pointed out to me?)

By the way, there's nothing wrong with having a few different versions of your logo.

Alec Moreno
http://www.1Day1ShotProductions.com

Travis,

Great job with studio name, logo, and the tag line. Very catchy.

Nice to see another logo with a butterfly although the shade of the butterfly is different :-)

Out of all the logos, I like 3rd one better. It has a nice variation in the text with the name in bold and the tag line in regular size (although I would reduce the kerning between the company name characters just a little). I like how the butterfly falls nicely into place (unlike #1) with the text.

Just an idea; See how right part of the butterfly looks like letter "S". What if you get rid of letter "s" from the word "studio" and use the butterfly "s" as part of "studio". This way, the butterfly will become part of the logo even more and whole thing will look as one entity.

This is exactly what I 've done for our logo:

Thanks for the additional comments guys.

Alec - We do indeed plan on having variations of the logo, so good call. I did play a lot with the kerning in that 2nd logo and I just felt the current spacing really brought out the modern and minimalist feel. It seemed like each time I brought the spacing in the logo lost some of that unique feel. I also agree that the butterfly feels more integrated and balanced within that 2nd logo.

Ram - Thanks! I do like #3 specifically for the reason that the tagline and business name have good contrast because of the bolding. I did already try your idea to remove the "S" from studios and use the butterfly element to convey it. Perhaps a better designer could make it work, but every iteration I tried just ended up looking contrived and .. well ... cheezy. The way you've done in your logo looks very nice.

Travis, I vote for 2nd & 4th. Cleaner designs and easier to read.

Awesome. Thanks everyone for the input, and feel free to keep it coming if you want. We've chosen the 2nd logo and we're currently experimenting with variations on that one to see if we find something better. Maybe I'll post the new iterations when we have them. It'll be pretty subtle changes at that point. Should be sometime tomorrow.

Travis,

I like your choice #2, very nice! The logo(butterfly graphic) and how it is used as letters is very similar to this Jessica Claire - Photographer.

I still like it a lot.

Thanks, Joe! I do know Jessica Claire but had no idea she had a butterly-ish logo. I like how her's also makes use of the J and C shapes within the butterfly. Clever. I'm also glad to see her design and style are quite different from ours! d;-)

Hey Travis,

Not sure if you're tallying up the votes here or not, but here's my humble thoughts... :)

#1 would be my pick of the bunch. I like the tight kerning of 'serendipity studios' and also the serif of the text.

The tagline idea works for me well too, although I feel it could be shifted down just a touch to keep it separate it from the main text. The butterfly might also be just a little dark with the black text.

Cheers,

Matt.

P.S. Love the meaning of 'serendipity' and think it's a great name for a studio.

Especially a photography studio, right? d;-)

Thanks for the comments and the vote. We did decide to go with #2 though, as it got a lot of votes (here and elsewhere) and better represents the modern feel we're trying to achieve.

Thanks a bunch for the post, though!

I really dig the name of your studio too! I think that "personal name"-studio or photography is so overdone and it nice to see a creative name other than one's personal name.

Cool. I'm glad you like it! When I initially opened up my business my thought was that a 'personal name' studio would feel more small-time until several years had gone by and I had market rep. I wanted the opportunity to start more quickly, and plus my name isn't very sexy, so I went with DreamBIG Productions. I was also planning for the future in case I wanted to sell the business before retirement. Same thing for my wife's business.

There's actually a bit of secret with her new name and logo, but I can't reveal anything just yet. d;-)