logo creation

For the presentation at the end of part 1, I made up some doodles of possible logos. Some were just playing around with shapes, some with letters... and results wise, some were good some were bad!
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First though, I put in some market research, looking at proper company logos etc. And being as I've done one for pretty much everything else, new craze and all, I made a moodboard!
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Of all these, I liked the SKY logo - reason being that the glassy, shiny effect always catches my eye when it's on tv etc. It looks nice. And this seems to confirm to me that I'm like a magpie - attracted to shiny objects and wanting to steal them! (but in Multimedia terms it's not stealing, it's a form of inspiration!) OK, the actual graphology of the letters is pretty basic, but I would note that the k and y join up, so I looked into this technique when sketching.
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Of these, I like the pitchfork one, it reminds me of a devlish brand or something (Bacardi maybe, with their bat?) and then the digital joined up, (almost neon shop light type) ash. The other one I can see as potential is the circles with little tails, making an a and e. Andy too picked up on this, saying that it could be make quite funny, with eyes in the middle!

So to help confirm a decision in a logo to go with, I 'digitized' the potentials:
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These are very simple forms, a step up from their paperbased cousins - just simple black lines.
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The problem when making a logo is that you tend to focus too much and after a while you see past what the actual image is and just see a hash of lines that don't have much semblance.
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So I did a little survey asking for preferences and the curly ae logo came back the most popular.
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This is when I stuck a wall. What could I do with it? Should I work in a symbolic object that is reminiscent of me in some way? Should the logo just be letters, but in different colours? Should it have a background?
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I basically started playing around. The first results were rubbish, but when I hit on something I liked, it fitted instantly.
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With these going nowhere, I went back to thinking again. I came up with thinking of some of the recent and popular design schemes used. The one that hit me was the Wii one. They use a three colour palette: striking light blue, grey and white, and then applying these colours to circles that resonate from the text. From the sample I made, I knew I was definitely going to use this route.
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I really like the way that the circle's edge tapers out at different points. The whole thing has a ripple effect feel to me, or maybe when water goes down the plug, that little cyclone.

I continued playing and made several other variations. Some have had the circles shifted so the 'opening' is in a different place. I included a few more shapes to add a different point of focus. One I've emphasised the a e by making it bolder and hopefully drawing the main attention there.
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It's really quite hard to choose a favourite. Each time I look at them I find something I like more in one, and then something I don't in another. Next look and it's gone and I prefer this over that one! It was totally unintentional, but I think the star logo above bears a very slight resemblance (typeface, icon) to the macy's logo?

I like the whole contemporary look, something sleek, modern (perhaps slightly minimalist). It was suggested in my progress presentation that I should try and garner/develop my style. If anything, the above description I think suits me extremely well.
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Any comments or suggestions from you, I welcome! I'm more than happy to try something if it means making it better.
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However, after reading Bryan Lawson's book How Designers Think and reading about the evaluation stage, he says that work doesn't have "an identifiable end" and it's always possible to do better, until that better is not negatable much more!
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So for now, that's one task of part 2 completed and I'm very happy with it. I've found I have enjoyed the logo making process; the market samples, the doodling, the putting it together on the computer and playing around with shapes.
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It'l be just my luck that a brief comes out, or I read something that makes my logo seem inappropriate.
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