If you want a ’swoosh’, you will most likely have to draw those yourself.
If you mean ’b’ and ’d’ being one shape, instead of a bowl attached to the stem, there are several sans serifs that have this. For example FF Dax. But that’s just one example. I’m sure others can list more. :)

Hi Quncunx,

Thanks for your help. FF Dax is a great font. I think I’m going to buy it. Or can anybody list any (possibly even better) fonts similar to FF Dax? Also, I’m still unsure how to make a proper logo out of the first draft I posted above. It still looks to minimalistic to me, and I wonder how to give it more personality. Can anybody help?

A few more with rounded b’s and d’s, some with more ‘character’ than others. But minimal doesn’t equal bad, a well-kerned well-proportioned type logo is rarer animal than one with a swoosh.

http://www.myfonts.com/search?search%5Btext%5D=ronda

http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/blhd/churchward-design/

http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/blhd/churchward-samoa/

http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/linotype/itc-kabel/

http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/berthold/bernhard-gothic-bq/

http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/linotype/gill-sans/

Tim

Hey timd,

those fonts are great too, thanks for your post. But what do you guys think about my initial design? Do you like the font? Maybe I should stick to it because it’s so simple. What do you think? How can it be improved? Cheers...

Well, I think it isn’t really special. It’s not setting the web design company in question apart from the rest. I think just grabbing a sketchbook and drawing alot of quick ideas always helps for logos.

True, but can you think of anything in particular that I could do to set the logo apart? I was thinking about turning the dot on the i into some kind of box to make the link to “bits”. But that doesn’t look that good... It makes the logo too complicated. What else could I do?

There’s nothing remarkable about your intial logo but, at the same time, there’s nothing really wrong with it either.

Personally, I’ve found that with your own logo, you can’t strive for perfection. It’s best to strive for ’sufficiently adequate’ and let it be, as if you don’t, you’ll forever be focused on your logo to the detriment of getting everything else up and running. Kind of the cobbler’s kid’s syndrome.

So, what you have is fine. Maybe let it rest and spend some time working on the ancillary branding elements like your web site layout and stationery and the like. Perhaps you’ll find that extra bit of ’aha!’ in those elements instead.

Because the kerning is rather tight the ‘it’ is suffering, the type isn’t visually centred horizontally, on the other hand the palette is attractive. I think that logos should not necessarily try to represent the qualities or skills of a company too obviously, in this arena (web design companies) I would suggest that a simple well-drawn logo does set it apart from those that have had a batch of filters thrown at it. I am not a fan of Frutiger, although I would find it hard to define the reasons for my dislike but taking your post as a start I would loosen all the kerning and then work on the positioning in the panel.

Tim

Here’s a rather loose arrangment

I have to say I agree with Aluminium that it’s OK. My own take on it is that it reminded me straightaway of simplebits. I think it’s more the name than the execution, although the fonts are quite similar. Although the name is friendly, so I think the all lowercase wordmark supports this and gives a friendly feel.

Don’t overwork it for the sake of it, you could have a minimal wordmark, but use another part of the branding to make it stand out - think about use of colour.

It goes without saying, but if it’s for a web design company, it’ll be used online predominently. That reason alone is enough to keep it simple because being used small at 72dpi makes the logo work hard.

Si

I also agree with Duckworth on the ’simplebits’ similiarity. That was my first reaction as well. But, that said, it’s likely just because simplebits is well known in that small world of pro web designers, so it’s likely not a huge issue.

I like Roberts small-capping of the ’BITS’ part, though the line seems arbitrary and unnecessary. Like Duckworth says, no need to overwork it (though I admit that’s hard to do when working on your own logo...it’s like an itch that just can’t be scratched...)

Hello everybody,

Thanks for all your input. I saw some of your posts too late, so some of your ideas haven’t been implemented yet. I fully agree with Aluminium in that making a logo for oneself is one of the hardest things to do. I’ve designed a few logos already and found every single one them about 10 times easier than this one (the one for my own business) !

Those of you who spotted some similarities with SimpleBits are right too. In fact I’m a huge fan of Dan Cederholm and visit his site regularly (I even bought his book “Bulletproof Web Design” which is a great read by the way). Anyway, I wasn’t aware that my surfing behaviour would have such an impact on the design of my new logo!!

In my new design I decided to add a box containing the letters d and b to make the logo even more recognisable. However, I feel that there isn’t enough linkage between the box and the type. Can anybody suggest ways on how to link those two elements more tightly? I have already applied a subtle background shadow to both elements but this alone won’t do the trick...

Also, why are some people suggesting to increase the kerning? That will make all letters wider, won’t it? Not only the “it” bit... Also, how can I “visually center the type”?

You can’t put a lowercase d back to back with a lowercase b without someone tossing out the ’tad phallic’ card. ;o)

Kerning = space between individual letters.

Well... Yeah... I knew somebody would bring that up. But, believe me, on a dice it looks so much better than on a 2D surface!

So how can I link the dice to the type? Any more ideas?

Also, where exactly would you change the kerning? Between b, i, t and s? Do you really think this is required? Thanks for all your help so far...

The dice looks more like a projection than a perspective drawing, the bottom left and right corners of the hexagon need to move up shortening the left and right sides.

Kerning is used to achieve an apparently equal space between characters, one way of seeing this is to squint at the image on a printout (upsidedown can help to stop the characters being apparent as characters) currently you will see a darker area under the crossbar of the t, ‘it’ especially, in the open counter of ‘n’ and slightly in the area where the open counters of the ‘e’ and ‘s’ meet; because of your admiration for Frutiger you probably don’t want to alter the characters to alter that, although it can be done, I would approach the kerning in two ways; taking the ‘gnb’ spacing as optimum and trying to make the spaces similar or the ‘it’ or a combination of the two.

By ‘visually centred’ I meant that where there is a curve on the ‘d’ there is a relatively straight side on the ‘s’ so although it might be mathematically centred it should shift a touch to the left to appear centred.

Tim

Thanks for your help, timd and aluminium!

I’ve spent a few hours trying to implement your ideas, although I found timd’s ideas regarding spacing and kerning quite hard to grasp from a beginner’s point of view (sorry, I ordered a book on typology today...). This is logo no. 1:

Half way through, I came up with another idea:

Please tell me which logo you like better. In logo no. 1 I find it still hard to establish a connection between the box and the type.

In both cases I am struggling Also, I am with the space between ’i’ and ’t’... If I decrease it, it looks odd too. What can I do?

Thanks for any help...

I like the idea of “es” and “ts” ligatures, though I think they could curve down slightly.

I think the “db” box doesn’t work with the type because it’s white on light blue, and there’s less contrast in it. Try making the box white on one side, and light blue on the other, and make the letters the darker blue.

- Lex

I don’t like the liga version, because ligas are just part of the whole idea and they don’t tell me anything. The “db” version is better to me.

And I don’t like gradients/light bumps/etc. on the cube. But the logo itself looks much better to me.

If you’ll go the liga route, you’ll have to connect more than just four letters. And using this particular typeface it’s going to be very hard.

The problem with the die is that you’re now encroaching on SimpleBits’ logo:

http://www.simplebits.com/

SimpleBits is a fairly well know web consultancy so I’d steer away from your current idea.

>quite hard to grasp
Sorry about that, it really helps to see it in action, there are alternative approaches, and better explanations – the exercises that Geoff links to are useful, although as he says some of the ‘answers’ are not correct. Kerning should also take into consideration size and use of type.

http://www.typophile.com/node/19035

As I said before a minimal approach are not necessarily a bad thing, a highly worked logo can end up with a generic feel.

Tim

Hey guys,

I’m still not happy with what I’ve got. You can see the current version of my logo on my website . I am currently trying to get rid of the stems (?) in the letters d, b, and g to make the logo look more dynamic and give it more character. I am thinking of even changing the font type. Can anybody recommend a typeface that may be suitable in this particular case? Thanks a lot...