hi tomas,

not a bad start though a couple of the letterforms stand out as odd, the 'e' and the tail on the o don't allow the word to be read easily. I don't mind the colours. it speaks of a friendly company though, which I presume you were after.

Communication Design, Melbourne

You could look at extending the centre arm of the e's slightly, which I think would help the first e, and the addition to the o is distracting, I wondered whether it was an eth or an accented O, it might be too much. You could adjust the ev kerning slightly tighter.
Have you tried any other separators a modified virgule might sit better with the geometric letterforms.
Tim

Tim,

Thanks I appreciate the comments. Honestly, we tried several other separators, including [{/ and others and just didn't like the. We kinda liked how the ( gave the logo some space, but you might be right we could find some other interesting separator.

I sort of agree with your comment on the o, but a plain o just looked too weird to me. Might be wrong about that, though :) Haven't seen anyone I showed it to confused about it's meaning, fortunately, but I'd love to find something else to offset the effort.

As for the ev kerning, good catch, I'll see to modifying that.

FWIW, all the text (including the '(') is just plain old Century Gothic. The final o as it stands right now is just the greek small sigma, while the two e's are the cyrillic capital E and the cyrillic capital ukranian le respectively. We sort of chose them because it game some simmetry to the logo (and we software developer types like symmetry ;))

I don't think the o is necessarily confusing, just gives a momentary hesitation (especially in an unfamiliar word). My comment about the separator was partly inspired by the desire to see closed parentheses, ultimately though you should be comfortable with the logo and any comments we can give here can't reflect the depth of work and thought you have already applied to the problem.
Tim

No worry, I do appreciate any comment :) It's funny, we struggled with the use of the left parens as the separator for the same reason you mention: you keep expecting to see the right closing parentheses, so you do have a pretty good point there.

We thought about using a vertical line or a pipe character, but thought it looked to "straight" and didn't mix very well with the very rounded rest of the typography, but maybe that was a good thing :)

We also considered making it more vertical (loose the separator, put dev on top of deo), but sort of liked it better horizontally. What do you think?

I like the direction of your logo. It always helps me to see it first in black and white, so you may want to post such a version.

I agree that it probably works better horizontally.

I do get the feeling of software development from your work. But i was a bit confused by your description:

highly focused IT / software development and consulting firm

Do you mean that you and your friends are focused (i.e. determined with a vision) or do you mean that the firm will do very focused, specific work (as in work with a specific industry). If it is the latter, reflect that in the logo, if possible.

Here are both greyscale and b&w versions of the logo (hope that was what you were looking for).

As for the focus thing, I think we mean a little bit of both. Definitely we have some very specific topics we specialize on (things like application integration, services and stuff like that).

can you post a version with just lowercase e's? I find those E's distracting

and the seperator probably needs to be nudged right slightly (or deo slightly left) for balance too IMO.

Here are some versions of the logo with some of the variations requested. Any comments?

... what are your thoughts?

Not entirely sure, yet :)

I'm leaning towards doing the kerning the other way: put more space between v and ( instead of closing the space between ( and d. I like the breathing room it provides.

I don't like the lowercase e's, though, they just don't work for me (maybe because I find they don't say enough). I have a feeling this has more to do with the typeface, though, so I'm open to suggestions on this front :)

well there you go. type is personal - as long as it communicates what it's supposed to.

I don't "get" the use of the uppercase (ish) E's, particularly next to the lowercase d. It's not that I don't like them, I just can't place the context for using them. It DOES almost create a weird hacker, nerd language (eg, 1337, haxXor, LOL, LMAO, BRBWTFBBQ etc), which could be good depending on what you're going for.

You bring an interesting point: they look uppercase-ish. hadn't realized that. I'll think about it some more, and maybe experiment with alternative typefaces (any suggestions?).

As I said in an earlier post, one of the reasons we chose the inverted, opposing e's was not about looking nerdy (though that might have been the end result), but trying to also generate a sense of symmetry in the logo that contrasted with the obvious asymetry the rest the company name (and the separator) created. might have been a bit over the top, though :)

The lc e version seems best to me. The ones you have 'read' too many ways at once. They are confusing - but without doing enough for you to make the exchange of clarity worthwhile. I end up reading the logo as 'dev deco' because you e reads almost like an e+c ligature. The line on the o doesn't help either. But what is this dev(deo thing anyway? What does it mean if anything? How do you want this mark to work for you? Logo making is not just tinkering with letters. I imagine this sounds harsh. I don't mean it to be.

Eben,

that's ok, no offense taken :) I appreciate your comments.

I guess the reason we introduced a separator between dev/deo was because we wanted to stress out the first part (which suggests dev from development). As for the entire name of the company, well that's the name we choose, and honestly, it is meaningful to us, though not something anyone else would recognize (and frankly they don't need to, either).

The other thing is that we most definitely didn't want to end up with a "common" logo for an IT shop with, say, a clunky computer clipart :) And we wanted something more sober, with very simple lines.

RE: though not something anyone else would recognize (and frankly they don’t need to, either.

I am inferring here so forgive me if I miss the mark but it sounds like you are saying that the logo's purpose is to look a certain way but not mean anything ( or to mean no more than 'dev') outside the company. Is this right? This sounds like a missed oppotunity to me.

Also, are you not a consulting company too? Shouldn't the 'deo' part have to do with that?

Eben,

I don't think EVERY aspect of a business naming, identity and potential brand needs to carry a HEAVY surface message like relating the "deo" to consulting, otherwise you'll end up with a name like Development and Consulting Technologies - communicate character and convey emotion yes.

Paul, maybe not EVERY & HEAVY. But look at the great logos and you will find that all the bits are there for a reason and the the logo WORKS for the company. It does an identifiable job & does it well.

Also, I don't think the result you suggest is in fact the only inevitable outcome. Actually the more I read what you wrote the less I can make out. What do you mean?

But more to the point : What do you make of the mark?

I just think that these guys have the wrong end of the stick. They absorbed the superficial trapping of how this is done ( tweak letters!) but don't get why it's done or know really what the logo can do for them. And as a result they will get something that serves them less well. Tweaking letters on a logo without a purpose in mind is no more effective than tweaking code randomly & expecting it to work properly.

This is an interesting discussion. FWIW, the "deo" in our name is a degeneration of "neo" ("new"), which was something we wanted to represent in our name but couldn't use directly (because of another company that used those three letters in an unrelated way).

Eben did say something that struck me as odd. He said "it sounds like you are saying that the logo’s purpose is to look a certain way but not mean anything". I didn't mean that at all. I consider the logo to represent the company and the company's name, that's the purpose. Our company name is devdeo, and that's what I'd like the logo to reflect. Now, whether the company name means something or not that's another story, I guess.

I'd agree that, yes, the name might not be as explicit as other names (like Ratbaggy says "Development and Consulting Technologies"). Problem is, pretty much all the other company names in this business around here have names based on that sort of thing and honestly, it's not very pretty.

A second problem with that approach is language: We are located in south america (colombia to be precise) and our language is spanish. Hence, choosing a meaningful name in that sense would've meant using a spanish name. Nothing wrong with that per-se, but the problem is we also have international customers, most english speaking, and so the spanish name just wouldn't have worked very well there (at least that was our opinion, we might be wrong). So, we decided to go with something that would work well (i.e. was easy to recognize for both sets of audiences). Yes, while the 'dev' part is intentionally english-ish, it is a commonly used prefix here for things related to software development and thus easily recognizable.

I just think that these guys have the wrong end of the stick. They absorbed the superficial trapping of how this is done ( tweak letters!) but don’t get why it’s done or know really what the logo can do for them. And as a result they will get something that serves them less well. Tweaking letters on a logo without a purpose in mind is no more effective than tweaking code randomly & expecting it to work properly.

there I completely agree.

... look at the great logos and you will find that all the bits are there for a reason and the the logo WORKS for the company. It does an identifiable job & does it well.

you were originally reffering to the word 'deo' - which I understood as meaning the business name needed to be "more obvious" see below) - which i disagree with. Though the words might not blatantly say "this is what we do" the logo/identity can (and should) speak (or yell) what the business is about.

Also, are you not a consulting company too? Shouldn’t the ‘deo’ part have to do with that?

Eben,

I just think that these guys have the wrong end of the stick. They absorbed the superficial trapping of how this is done ( tweak letters!) but don’t get why it’s done or know really what the logo can do for them. And as a result they will get something that serves them less well. Tweaking letters on a logo without a purpose in mind is no more effective than tweaking code randomly & expecting it to work properly.

No one is arguing for random tweaking, I'd say. What I'm not sure I'm understanding correctly is whether you have an issue with the logo itself or the company name (or both). The company name is what it is (if you don't like it, fine, but that's the name we choose and that's the name we're sticking with), the logo is a different matter. If you get a customer requesting a logo, do you force them to change their name because you don't like it? :)

But I've explained our reasons for choosing the logo and the "letter tweaks" as you call them, and so far haven't seen anyone saying anything about it. Maybe you don't agree with them, and that's fine again, but I'd love to hear anyone explicitly say why they suck, instead of just arguing about the company name :)

Just out of curiosity; what was the spanish language name option?

Also I am not saying devdeo is a bad name. Not at all. It sounds a bit like you are saying 'codegod' which might mean 'we code well'. That is just what it sounds like to me.

I guess what I still don't understand is what the devdeo logo is meant to suggest if anything. You said 'modern' & 'focused' so far but really you could say more. And you could even work off the fact that you are in Columbia. That could be very effective. Effective at what? you may ask. What's the big deal?

To me the devdeo logo far while okay in it's way ( really! it doesn't suck or anything ) is also a bit too similar to other logos in approach. It makes it too forgetable. I guess I am saying why not try more ideas? Why not set out with an idea about the specific assumptions you want somebody to make about you when the see the logo - and cultivate that impression specifically. And make the logo more memorable. It's *way* more work but if you succeeed they logo will work harder for the company.

About the 'company name/deo' aspect. I was just responding to Tomas when he said:

"not something anyone else would recognize (and frankly they don’t need to, either)."

This sounded to me like like they were making a part of the logo and name that was not functional. To me this sounded like he was maybe saying " Well, okay; this logo thing, it's not that important. I mean, if half of it means something to the customer - that's enough."
That sounded less that ideal to me. Thats all. If the 'e' works or not is just one aspect of a logo.

RE: "If you get a customer requesting a logo, do you force them to change their name because you don’t like it? :)"

Force them? Never. But convince them; if it's for the good of the business. Sometimes. Yes! I have actually convinced clients to change their whole identity. Name, logo & everything. Sometimes that old identity had even won awards. But the reason to do it can never to do with my own likes or dislikes. How I feel is irrelevant. The reason to change a logo (or occasionally a name) must to do with effective marketing of the company and it's services. One client of mine was holding onto an award winning logo that no longer worked for them. Why wasn't it working? It related to a business model they were no longer using and which had publically failed. Even though the old logo had won an award it was not serving the business interests of the company anymore - the new logo helped them get 1.25 M in venture funding. The new logo served the new business interests of the comany & helped them say: we are a new company with a new outlook and a new business model.

Sometimes a logo is meant to work with consumers. Sometimes other companies. Sometimes with investors. Sometimes a combination. But it's wise to think about the purpose of a name & a logo and craft it to be effective for your goals.

Tomas, the fact that you use the word 'force' in your question tells me I am making my arguements to you in a way that is too strong. So I will stop questioning your approach to logo making here. I have made my point - probably too many times. If I can be helpful to you regarding the shape of an 'e' let me know.