What's the logic behind rounding some corners?

hhp

Honestly, there was not much thought behind it. I just felt like I needed to do something to make it more ownable. I liked the font "out of the box" but it's pretty distinctive and I thought I might need to do something to differentiate it.

Wanting to differentiate is good, but the direction you go should come from need. Does some-rounded-corners mesh with what the client is/wants?

hhp

(img removed per client request)

Hrant, Thanks for all your comments.

I was pulled away from this job for a bit. I had time to look it over yesterday and made a couple of changes and would like to get your thoughts.

I'm wondering if that space between the 'e' and 'y' is distracting.

Again, don't know much about the nature of the client, but:
If you're chopping off a half-serif from the "el" (which I like BTW) you might pull that off with the "y" too. I would also consider making everything (or maybe almost everything) flat - I'm thinking top/bottom of the "C", bottom of the "e", and/or bottom of the "y" (which might convey an air of stability befitting a government contractor).

hhp

Thanks again for your feedback. I'll try out a some of your thoughts and see where they go.

As for the nature of the client; as a government contractor they really cover a broad spectrum of services, everything from elearning, web development, workforce development, training, performance consulting, etc...
so the look has to be flexible enough to work in a variety of environments.

(img removed per client request)

This is a quick sketch trying a bucket 'y', just wanted to get some opinions on it.

thanks.

This is too cute, it has some sort of baby giraffe feel to it. I'd revert to the previous version of 'y'.

There's absolutely no need to get all serifs consistent across the words. It is not a wall of text, it's just a set of specific glyphs and while it's nice to have some consistency between them it is certainly not a requirement, nor even a priority. I think the version from 2:38 pm is really good, it matches your brief well, so I wouldn't over-think things and simply go with it. It is indeed very good.

I prefer the first version. All that red feels garish, and I like the stability of the even-footed {l}. The font looks friendly but professional. And as a linguistics nerd, I find macrons attractive. :)