I like the first 'ft' ligature, and then the third. The second one isn't doing it for me because the horizontal join looks too clunky.

Personally I think the last one is the best because it's simpler then the others.
Plus when you shrink it, it will still look good, the others will just look cluttered.

Seconded.

By removing the right arm of ‘f,’ you’ve actually transformed that last one to “Lit List” (with a long-s = ſ ).

Why don’t you just let the ‘ft’ ligate at the crossbar and leave the tops unconnected? If you add a ball terminal to the ‘f,’ it will mirror your ‘it’ ligature and give the logo some lift, instead of keeping it all closed in.

Along these lines:

caled/brettr/riccardo = thanks! I agree that the second one feels way too heavy.

kentlew = of course! I liked the weight of the last one but was worried that the 'f' was lost and you are absolutely right...I turned it into list. (Though, that's actually interesting conceptually...list would be an equally appropriate term for the product).

I think you're spot on with the ball terminal on the f. Makes it legible and adds a bit of symmetry. I'll work on that next!

So, I ran with the 'balled' f idea and put it next to the one from above that I was kind of partial to. Thoughts?

Also, how's the 'L' looking? Am I bastardizing it too much?

(Oh, and if an admin sees this, I suppose this really should be under logo critique rather than in the design section. Feel free to move.)

Put the 'L' back how it was - it looks terrible now.

Playing with the Ls now. The original L seems to be too far removed from the rest when using the ligatures. The intent of the original modification was to tighten up the words, though perhaps that went to far.

Thoughts on these?

I think the narrowed L is best, and could even be narrower.
Move the /f/ and /t/ apart a bit, and you won't have to stunt the top of /t/ so much. They seem way too crowded in any event. Mind a balance of the interletter space between /i/ and /f/ and between /f/ and /t/.

To allow for more informed feedback, can you provide any context such as who the client is, what product/service do they offer, who is their audience &c?

Excellent point on the i/f vs. f/t negative space! I completely missed that. I've adjusted the spacing and the 't' and narrowed the L a bit more.

As for context...this is a logo for a web-based novel writing 'helper' application. It allows a person writing a novel to organize their notes, settings, characters, etc, and then access this information while they are writing.

http://litlift.com/

There's going to be a mark as well (included below).

Finally, I made an adjusted version of the previous ligature that seemed to be a favorite as well for comparison.

Thanks for all the feedback so far, everyone!

That spacing looks better.

I like the direction of (1) but it is a bit heavy in that upper right part. Could you thin out the /ft/ crossbar to lighten it?

Another possibility to try is like (2), but instead of omitting /f/'s crossbar on the right, try curtailing /t/'s crossbar on the left.

Now the dot on the i has literally been Lıfted away…

eliason: here's some tweaks based on your suggestions. Good ideas!

Christopher: ha! I like that!

Final tweaks:

i'm not sure i get the mark above the text. reminds of the insert edit mark when editing copy. do you need a mark? i think the word mark alone is excellent.

FWIW it took me quite a while to read the mark as "shadowed" 3-d books: For quite a while I was seeing it as oddly asymmetrical, partly open books seen from the top/bottom.

I believe the ft crossbar should have a single even stroke, and that the ascender on the final t should not be curved on the left.
These are shapes informed by the broad pen, so it would be wise to structure them accordingly.
Also, there is no necessity to make the ball of the f the same size as the tittle, it might be better smaller, allowing more room for the ascender of t.
At any rate, the open tittle looks too small compared to the ligatured tittle.

hola/eliason: hmm...maybe the mark isn't that big of a deal. I'll think about that a bit. In context, they may come across as books quicker, but they don't seem to make or break the logo, either.

Nick...thanks for the feedback. I made a couple more tweaks (2nd and 3rd below). I do like the straighter shared crossbar. I tried removing the t's curve on the ascender but it feels a bit awkward, IMHO. I'm leaning towards the middle option.

middle one for me too. looks great man!

I also think the middle one is the best, however the last one is a close second though.

Reason I think the middle one is the best is because the the "t" flows within the ligature, as if the top was almost a holster for the ball terminal of the "f". The "t" on the last one seems out of style with the rest of the glyphs, and because there is another "t" in the logo, people might compare the two for differences making them focus on a perceptional error instead of the cleverness of your design.

It's looking real good!

I quite like the middle design. Seems to flow nicely as a whole. One issue is possible the join between the f and t. As it is the only 2 letters joined makes it look a tad odd, might just be me though.

Well that sounds like consensus! Thanks for all the help/comments everyone!

I still like the visual rhetoric of the dot on the i being lıfted away by the f. But perhaps it’s a little too cute. That aside, I prefer #2. The terminal of the f might come a little close to the ascender of the t at smaller sizes. A very nice mark.