What do you think of my logo?

Design help Design inspiration
1

Can you give me some professional advice on my personal brand logo?

As an undergraduate with a side hustle, I cannot afford expensive branding services, so I decided to spend some time researching branding guidelines, the psychology of color, etc. and after many weeks of hard work and hundreds of mockups I have came up with this design.

However, I’m not sure of the size of the logo, the colors and the typography either, and would love to know your opinion regarding the proposed logos and any modifications.

I have attached 4 different logo ideas with different color combinations and a combination where you can also see the colors I’d like to use for my name and the subtitle.

Some facts about my brand:

GOAL: I wanted to design a monogram logo made of my two initials (B & J) to incorporate to my presentations, website, social media, etc.

  1. WHO I AM: a young professional (22 years old) passionate about learning, meeting new people and helping them grow in their careers. I’m interested in tech, communication and talent management, so I have a strong focus on people.

  2. MY BUSINESS: just started a personal branding and LinkedIn consulting business (to design personal branding strategies on LinkedIn). I’m also writing a book centered around personal branding in the digital age.

  3. TARGET: professionals and CEOs looking for a strong digital presence with career/business growth goals.

  4. THE LOGO:

4.1. BRAND ATTRIBUTES: I would like the logo to reflect professionalism, trust, but also to be fresh and dynamic. So I want something clean and sophisticated, with a modern feel, which isn’t too serious (I’m 22, professional enough to work with senior-level clients but also young and creative).

4.2. COLOR PALETTE: I’ve thought of dark, vibrant BLUE, dark GREY/BLACK, ORANGE (not sure of which tone, because I’ve read that it is avoided for luxury, traditional or serious brands). I want to use all that colors in my social media, my website, my presentations…

4.3. FORM SHAPE: initially I thought of something straight edged shapes and straight lines rather than round shapes, but don’t have a clear idea.

4.4. TYPOGRAPHY: I need to choose a topography both for the name and the subtitle, as well as for the website). I’ve been recommended to use Lato, and I’ve also thought of more modern fonts (Montserrat, Roboto, Raleway, Exo, Open Sans, Titilium, Ubuntu…).

P.S. If you need help with your LinkedIn profile and would like to further help me with the logo in exchange for some LinkedIn advice / a premium consulting service of LinkedIn I’ll be more than happy to e-meet you!!

image|500x500

1 Like
2

Looks nice! Keep up the good work.

1 Like
3

I think this is a good start, but this looks to me like a single idea with four weights as opposed to four different ideas. Do you happen to have any other directions you were exploring before you landed on this one? Even if they are just sketches, I would challenge you to play around with some other ideas - if only to figure out that this is the best solution.

Also I’m noticing a lot of artifacts around your letter forms that you’ll want to clean up for the final version. Work in progress images can be a bit rough but you’ll want to work with vector shapes to create the final version.

1 Like
4

That’s true, Mike, I didn’t explain myself well. It’s the same logo idea with different weights, and I’m hesitant about which one to choose… before this, there were dozens of logo ideas but they were all discarded (I played so much that I ended up tired of them :joy:).

Regarding the roughness of the picture, this has been done on an iPad app called Sketchbook and it’s not the final version at all, but first I want to decide the weight of the logo etc.

5

No worries, more information on the project will always help others provide valuable feedback so thanks for the clarification. Any chance you’d be willing to share the two closest runners up out of the bunch you discarded?

In terms of what you’ve provided, I’d say the third thickest weight is working the best as it’s thick enough to stand on it’s own (or alongside a wordmark), gives plenty of room between the shapes to stay readable at small sizes, and has a much nicer relationship between the dot to the left (which I feel is too large on the heaviest weight).

6

Thank you so much Mike, and for sure! I’m sending you all the previous “professional” versions based on my logo idea, but I honestly don’t like most of them haha regarding the size of the dot, it’s something I can definitely change, I haven’t given much thought to it to be honest (so which size would you recommend).

And just to make sure I understood it well, you would go for the thicker B right?

image|500x500

7

Including some numbers next to the various options is helpful for feedback, but the second thickest option from your first post is my personal preference out of the bunch. The thickest option is a close second (and I actually prefer the overall heft and the way the shapes interact) but I feel like the size of the dot is throwing it off a bit. I don’t see either of the two thinnest options standing on their own very well, although giving each version some room to breathe may help with the critique. Right now everything is somewhat haphazardly placed and very close to one another and the edge of their containing box. Give them enough space to stand on their own:

image
image1000×1000 33.5 KB

In your new image I’m still seeing a lot of options that revolve around that same idea of using the J sideways within the B (which I’m not totally sold on just yet) so I’d challenge you to explore a bit further. I will normally fill multiple sheets of paper with ideas before moving on to refinement and very rarely do I find that any of my initial sketches make the final cut. Don’t be afraid something “bad” either, sometimes you need to get out all of the wrong ideas to reach the right ones.

The following aren’t mine, but they give you a good idea of what type of exploration I’m talking about:



https://cdn.dribbble.com/users/1090985/screenshots/3357760/abouthorses_logo_sketches.jpg

2 Likes
8

Hi buddy, this is solid work. You claim your not a professional logo maker, but these designs are very good. You have the attention to detail and alignment.

I am still newish to graphic design but perhaps I could chime in here. May be of value.

Regarding fonts, I see you are leading towards a San serif, which is good. I’m not sure if you have been to Google fonts? Type in BJ and you will see what it looks like across all fonts. I find this is really easy to narrow down which ones are good. Also read the descriptions and see if it aligns with your branding/goals. Personally I would avoid any type of display or script fonts.

Curved letters are easier on the eye, they convey friendliness and a bit playful but still with a element of professionalism. Sharper corners are normally used for things like law firms, serious type companies. Although, this is a very black and white statement and there are variables to this, I mean really reputatable companies use curves (think macdonalds) they designed the logo to look like mammary glads to convey trust, and nurture and comfort.

The design is very smart, look on Pinterest for logo design, negative space ect. But I think you nailed the aesthetic of the design.

Have you used the golden ratio to design this?

Colours is a tricky one. I normally use a color wheel and colour emotion chart.

I think ultimately when you look at the logo and think, yeah man that’s awesome. Then you have nailed it!

What would I change personally? I would add a gradient for the colour. But that’s just me because I love gradients.

Your logo looks great, and some of the sketches are awesome. Good work dude.

1 Like
9

I really appreciate your feedback! I think I might consider starting to learn more about graphic design haha

Regarding the font, I did what you say on Word and Canva (typed the B with the thousands of different fonts), but I’m gonna have a look at google fonts (specially for the name and the subtitule which of next to the logo).

Regarding the colors, I’ve simply reas a few articles on psychology of colors (and did use a color wheel because I read somewhere that complimentary colors worked well, that’s why I’d like to use orange and blue), but once again I’ll have a look at the color emotion chart. Besides, I also love gradients but didn’t consider using them because I also read somewhere that it wasn’t always recommended to use them, probably because plain colors are easier to combine with all backgrounds? :sweat_smile:

And no, I don’t know what the golden ratio is but now I will search it on google haha

Once again, thank you for the thorough feedback! I’ll keep working on it and show you the final design :wink:

10

Im going to try a few designs tomorrow as well. I will send them over :slight_smile:

1 Like
11

I prefer the B with all orange J in it. But it’s ok also with just color on the dot. And use one of the two thickest versions, as mikeyevin recommends. I think it works fine with grey and orange.
Don’t overemphasize the psychology of colors or the need of complementary colors. Red, yellow, green and blue has quite strong associations, but orange is more “neutral”, but fresh. One of my favorite colors. :wink:

1 Like
12

I am also web designer and I will try these logo design in future. Thanks
https://www.technocratshorizons.com/web-designing/

15

Great Thread! Thanks for the information!