You need to hire a professional.

Cheers for the adept and insightful criticism. Any more gems you wish to share?

Welcome to Typophile.

Rather than posting dozens of very similar versions, I'd suggest you pick your favorite version and post it once in color and once in black and white.

> Feel free to post whatever, I have a thick skin.

And yet you posted a sarcastic response to Dunwich Type. Granted his post was rather blunt, but still that's not the best way to encourage others to help you out.

Thanks for the input, however in my defence, he instigated the lowering of the tone with the partonising response. I can take criticism, however when there is no substance to it it doesn't add to the debate.

Thicker, please.

hhp

> he instigated the lowering of the tone

Anyone who posts here will hear negative comments sometimes, along with comments that they might feel are unhelpful. Especially if your designs are "not polished" as you said yourself.

My advise would be to keep the tone friendly even if you don't like some of the responses.

An easy way to separate the amateurs from the professionals* is to gauge their reaction to criticism. You admit you are amateur, so I don't think we can fault you for that reaction to James' comment. But note that it wasn't particular mean. Just blunt. As professionals, most of us** much prefer honest and blunt critique over sugar coated half-assed praises disguised as critique.

So, point being, welcome to your first lesson on receiving critiques: Don't take them personally...it's a comment on the work, not you as a person.

Also, IMHO, I find the best design solution isn't always apparent in a vacuum. Often just one little idea from a critique can take the project into a whole other (and better) direction.

That out of the way, I have to second JamesM...no need to post 36 copies of one logo. Post one, and let us focus on that.

To offer some hopefully useful feedback, the first thing that jumps out at me on all your logos is the double-outline. It's very jarring and adds nothing but complexity to the forms. I suggest as a start that you strip out all of the outlines.

Secondly, explore a bit more. Do some sketching. Play with some type. A big part of logo design is brainstorming ideas and exploring them to see where they take you. Figure for every hour of drawing the logo there are 5-10 hours of sketches and brainstorms.

* Granted, in this industry, even some of our celebrity designers can be thin skinned Prima Donnas.

** OK, maybe I'm wishful thinking there. I *hope* most of us, as professionals, prefer the honest, even if blunt, critiques over the "well, that's pretty good..." fluff.

Also, take a few hours and browse through the logo critique section of the forums:

http://typophile.com/forum/23

There's been some amazing back-and-forth critique/rework processes in there over the years that are a lot of fun to read and watch as a logo morphs from the initial idea into something quite often different but wonderful. You'll also get a feel for how a designer uses the critiques and doesn't necessarily implement suggestions verbatim but uses them as a point of departure for that next round of ideation.

Welcome to Typophile.

If you want your work critiqued, put it in the appropriate place:
Home » Forums » Critique » Logos / Corporate ID Design
(Seeking an 'appraisal' is odd. Fishing for compliments won't make a design better.)

Upload images that aren't too wide for Typophile. I think 580 pixels is the max...

Don't post low quality JPEGs that are CMYK. In my browser (Safari 5 on OS X) the images appear with wildly incorrect color (the whites are black, the greens are purple) because you didn't save them properly. I had to open the images in Photoshop to see the correct color, and then I saw blurry, aliased images.

None of the ScotBath variations suggest the Scottish Saltire to me. I am American, don't know the history of heraldry, but a quick Google search shows me that a green saltire isn't really Scottish. So why have the logo be in green if you want it to evoke the flag of Scotland? Blue on teal is unreadable.

I don't see the diagonal/cross of the flag in your waves. At best it makes the overall shape look woven, but it doesn't do what you want it to. It doesn't communicate water or flag to me.

The type choices are lame. Both are boring. Like aluminum says, keep exploring.

This all needs more refinement. You want help to "carry [you] forward" and part of that is getting honest critiques. I think Typophile can be an immensely rewarding community if you take the time to read and research all the information posted throughout the site. Take a look at the Typowiki and Resources link at the top. Lurk before you post.

All of that said, I look forward to seeing your next iteration.

(No comments on Q Gardens, because it is easier to critique it separately. Don't force two topics into the same thread)

> JPEGs that are CMYK

I meant to mention that also; I had to switch browsers to view them properly. You might try using Photoshop's "save for web" feature (File > Save for Web and Devices) when preparing a graphic to post. It saves a copy of your graphic as a 72 dpi RGB JPEG that has a much smaller file size than the original; perfect for posting on the web. Once you learn how to use it, it's a quick and easy way to make JPEGs to post.

> I don't think we can fault you for that reaction to James' comment

As a newcomer you might not know he's referring to Dunwich Type, who like me is named James. :)

(Yay, Typophile lives again!)

Actually almost all of those would be much better served by GIF.

hhp