sorry, forgot to say: comments and suggestions welcome.

With no other context, serious = flat, definitely.

hhp

thanks. I was looking at http://www.logo.nino.ru/main/ and it has 1000's of logos. None of the logos contain text with rounded edges, but I just wanted to rule it out for certain.

matthew

There are a hundred ways to say 'serious' though.
With a name like "GetChatting.com" how buttoned up
can they be? I wouldn't rule out a little whimsy
just because one attribute is 'serious.'

I think name of your firm should be "Brown Design".

Stephen,
why "brown design"? In my experience, there are negative connotations with the word "brown"
Joe, thanks for you comments. The company, which I will be starting with a friend at some point when we can both be proactive enough, will be pitching our sockets based flash compatible chat software to customer relations companies. Getchatting.com was by coincedence already registered by the man who subsequently offered to lend us a bit of money (getchatting being related slightly to his company getmapping). So the tone (though not the fonts or graphics) may be roughly similar to getmapping.

Orange used to be hip.
Then, pink was the new orange.
Now, brown is the new pink.

There is nothing hipper than brown, Matthew. Ride the wave.
Besides, it will always be a great surname.

Stephen is onto something. Brown = stable.

(Put orange, brown and pink together with a
little sky blue and you've got one kickin'
palette.)

stable in which sense?
hmm... orange can be clearly defined. everyone knows orange, pink the same. But brown is so all-encompassing. You can have warm browns, dark cold browns, light browns. Many different browns.
How now brown cow

See August and May in: http://www.sandstromdesign.com/month.html

Ahh. Pleasure. A design site with brains. I love it (apart from the navigation which seems slightly dodgy). The atmosphere, strangely, reminded me of oregon. which is weird because the designer guy comes from there.

Matthew: Don't have any suggestions about color. To me brown suggests retro, offbeat, vintage, different.

become logo: I think this would be helped by tighter spacing. Also, you have a lot of talents so what kind of services are you offering under the become umbrella? Perhaps there's something more telling than an arrow counter, maybe even a slash 0 or a Question Mark. When I see the logo, I want to make it into a question: What do you want to become?


getchatting: what is the company about? For some reason, flat edges seem more professional, rounded more fun and casual.

There are some cool possibilities with the beginning and ending letters both being 'g' and the tti lig.

You could also experiment with the size of the bottom loop of your bicameral g.

good luck,

bj

Thanks for the comments, bj.

become logo: I agree. It was put together from an earlier pixel version and I was a bit lazy, not bothering to adjust spacing.

getchatting logo: I have been working fora while. Here is the most recent incarnation, in three different forms. The logo is just provisionary, thought up at 2:00am, when things always seem better than they are.

getchatting logotypes getchatting.swf (3 k)

Color: I seem to recall a fashion company having the name blue, but their color was orange. Does anyone else remember this? I do remember, at first, thinking it stupid, but then later realizing how clever it was.

Sample: The 'H' as people... that is a good start. However, your 'H' is very reminiscent of House Industries "funhouse". I think the type surrounding your icon is semi-contradictory. Too straight-faced.

True, true. I might make a separate logo and go with the middle type. what do you think of the bottom example. effective?

IMO I wouldn't use the bottome type. You've introduce a third "trick" by separating the type in two weights. Also, by separating your little icon from the type, this doesn't get rid of the contradiction between styles. In fact, I would think it would exaggerate it. Have you tried tweaking (ultra-technical term) the shapes of the other letters for better coordination?? One option could be (besides minor tweaking, ergo loosening up) thickening all of the letters to match the weight of the "H".

If I did use the bottom type, or indeed the middle type, it would be without the logo "H", which I would either dispose of or alter so it could go infront of the text. experimenting with new logos at the moment.

"brown gets the job done" - UPS describes the colour character perfectly in their new campaigns.


seconding bj's comment
Did you not notice the iconic and or graphic potential with the first g and the last g? they could be faces-------->chatting. they are the only descenders...its screaming for attention. do something with the g's.

> I was looking at http://www.logo.nino.ru/main/ and it has 1000s of logos.

1000s of BAD logos. I

here's another try.

getx getchatting.swf (3 k)

Well... have spent quite a time developing, and come up with a preliminary header for a website. Am I ripping anybody off, and I just haven't realized?
http://www.become.co.uk/ness/index2.html

Matthew

Yes. I see the similarity. Hmm. Butt I don't feel its too similar. Well...maybe it is...
What do others think?

What's nice about the telespree logo is that it takes the language of the speach bubble but depicts it in a unique way. Similarly, the eaxmples below are all basically the same idea, just realized in different ways. These clichés have power because they subvert our immediate expectations.

oops. Here are the logos I was referring to:

Matthew - thought about the counters.

oops, the left one, the pixels look malformed.

Now THAT'S getting somewhere...

I like the clever counters in the "g" I would however try it with a slightly thinner weight.

like this?

get getchatting.swf (1 k)

I would suggest flipping the speech bubbles so
the tails point inward...when trying to read
the logo the speech bubbles lead my eye away
from the logo.

so i'm a little
late on this,
but how what
if all of the
counters were
speech bubbles?
get chatting, y'know?
the first thing
i see when i look
at the logotype
is the "a".
a speech bubble
in there would
really be noticed.

the "g" with the chat bubble is interesting.
what about turning the g on its side so it s like a pair of glasses and then add the chat bubbles.
remember you can always spell out the name of the company, a logo is a mark that represents the name and business