I like the top one too. One thing that bothers me, and maybe it's just me, but the m's are distracting. I don't think you need to mirror the second m. You already have the reversed e and the paint brush stroke, I think the design will work just as well with two regular m's. In all I think it's good. Having the e reversed makes me think you do web work. Is that intentional or just me?

the kerning on Art & design could use a little tightening. it feels like the "n" is going to fall off the edge.

As for color. grey and orange are always a decent match, but in this case, the brush stroke is a huge focus and it draws my eye along it's path and away from the text. My eye is being retrained to read left to right and up again....it's a lot of work for a logo.

I also agree on the MM's

If anything...I like the b/w versions. Or Make the brush stroke grey as well.

hope this helsps.

Thats a very interesting observation. Now that i think about it, thats probly what i would have thought subconciously.

I agree about the mirrored m and the orange/grey combination issue.

Seeing as this appears to be your final design, i can't really make comments on the fundamentals of your basic design, because you are unlikely to change the design too radically anyway. I do like the design, it is one of the better logos recently. I think the type work is decent and the design itself is balanced and robust, but still exhibits flair.

Cjoe, feel free to speak your mind on the logo. I am not against making changes if the I agree with them. As you can see, I have made some changes based on suggestions already.

I agreed with the "m" comments. Once I began looking at them they were a bit odd and sort of hurt my eyes to make out. I fixed that and made the other text tighter so as not to look fragile as it did before. Plus I changed the colors around. Do these changes help or hinder?



By the way, why does the reverse "e" make ya'll thing of web design?

I think the changes look great.

The e makes me think of web because of things like "e-mail" or "ebay" or "e-commerce." Or anything else that has an e in front of it.

I think that this revision is much more sound. I'm glad you fixed the m thing. That technique is fine, but tends to compete with your brush stroke flourish for attention. It may have been okay by itself i.e. if you didn't have the flourish there.
Another little technical thing; The whitespace between the 'm' and the 'o' is wider than from the 'o' and the 'n'. I'm anal so this really sticks out, but it may just be an artefact from your compression algorithm. (i suggest you use .png in the future for this type of image on the web). Really examine your kerning closely.
When you changed the colour of your type and brush flourish, you should have changed the 'art & design' part as well. It recedes behind the main type and i think this upsets the balance of the design. I think the 'art & design' also looked better when it was aligned with the edge of the main type.

As for the 'e' thing. It has that effect, simply because it emphasises the 'e', which has become a traditional indicator of electronic based systems. e-business, e-mail, e-commerce etc. It just makes you think, even if subconciously, *electronic, internet etc.*

As for the fundamental design itself, i think after looking at it for a while it has grown on me. I am a big fan of logo type, and after looking at your design i think it stands on its own reasonably well. Just imagine what it looks like without the flourish or the extra type. I still think it works reasonably well.

RE: the 'e' thing

you beat me to it Cassi.

Cjoe, thanks for the comments. I have adjusted the logo from your suggestions. Let me know if this helps or hinders.



As far as the colors, good or no?

I liked it better with "art and design" in grey. It read as clemmons>art&design>brush stroke

this new update reads art&design>clemmons>brush stroke. my personal view anyway.

my only other suggestion is moving the "cl" in a bit. I appears to be stuck out alone in the cold while the rest of the letters are all snuggled together. I'd probably move it in so it at least hits the left side of the e, if not a slight bit more.

other than that, very nice logo. It tells me what you do instantly and thats key. orange and grey always look good together as well

fair comment, however in this latest revision the 'art & design' bit is larger. Can you take it down to its original size, re: the first set of designs you showed?

Ok, I changed the "art & design" back to gray (my thoughts were along the same lines as emmerse's were on the coloring of that too) and I squeezed in the "cl" as suggested, but am on the fence about it, but I kind of like it too.


Any other thoughts?

Question from a newbie...

The left "leg" of the first M is much wider than the left leg of the second M, or all the other legs for that matter.
Is that OK, because it makes me question why it's like that.

Mario

I just talking about colors. I like the first logo and last one. It's looks really cool to me.

I agree with MyST something wierd with the first "m".

Also that paintbrush stroke isnt really doing it for me. Want to simplify it even more?

I'd drop it (thats just me), fix the first "m", but keep a copy of file before you make the change, just to see if it stands out better, if not you can go back.

About the "m", the reason the first M has a thicker side is to create the reverse "e" out of it. If I left it thin as the other "m" I could not reverse it. I tried to reverse the E out of just a box with space between it and the first M but it didn't look right.

If I simplify the paint stroke, in my opinion, it won't have the same character as it has now. I am pretty happy with the make up of the logo at this point. There have been a lot of great suggestions on this thread that has made it better and I thank all of you.

The only thing I am torn on right now is the colors, the consensus is the gray and orange and orange and blue combonations are best. Though I am leaning toward the gray and orange I kind of dig the blue and orange too. So, which do you all like best?