what's up with the dots over f&t? i don't get it...

The dots, for me, are reading as an umlaut. From your description, they should read as people, yes? What if you simply put the dots over the u and let it read as an umlaut, but in an appropriate place? although, this is the designer in me talking, which could be a bad thing.

yes, the "ft" with the dots above a meant to represent people. one feeding another.

What about a typeface such as century, which has instead of dots > finials, then you can re-design the 'ft' lig to work this way.... does this make sense?

why yes it does! great idea!

If the concept of people feeding one another is important, perhaps you pull it out of the type altogether and look at other ways to transform "loftus" into an ownable logotype, whether through ligatures or another treatment.

A final logo system might be flexible, allowing the client to use the logotype or logo by itself, or combinations of both to accommodate horizontal and vertical applications.

jb

I did get the idea that they were people (although reading your description probably created a motivating context), but I couldn't see the feeding idea in there. Is it health care for birds? ;-)

Seriously: I think you need to make the "f" and "t" more like people - and as a result a little less like glyphs - just don't sacrifice legibility too much.

Another idea: the name sounds like it's "elevated"; if your client wants to amplify that, put some kind of "elevation" in there, like making the "ft" rise higher; one nice thing about that is that it would convey "our customers are more important than our company itself" (never mind that's unlikely to be what they actually think at all).

hhp

thanks all for the comments. very helpful.

when i said feeding, i meant like feeding medicine, er a nurse feeding a child cough syrup kinda thing.
i like your idea about elevating the "ft" i will try it. also experimented with giving the "l" a tail.

I think it would look better if the tail you added was shorter...for the moment I prefer the logo without the tail, that makes the spacing tighter. When the "l" does not have the tail, it is close to "o", as close is "s" to "u", which gives a symmetry to the logo and considering the white that "o" and "u" have, the "ft" gets more vivid.
I liked the idea of Hrant to elevation "ft", but I am afraid if then the logo would be read "loft us"...which maybe is not bad now I think over.

Maybe raise the "ft" and make their bar span the whole horizontal (above the xheight)? You know, evoking "Unity". :-) Plus that would make it more like a logo and less like a plain setting - always a plus when you want to justify your fee to the client...

hhp

go back to your first drawing this is quite nice.
you dont have to have the "left handle" on the "f" you could move the "f" closer to the "o" and make a clean break of the "t" and the "f" try also using the reverse block again...maybe with a roof shape. very nice work