The good news is it's not illegible at all. The bad news is that it's also not classic, sophisticated, mature, serious, nor traditional either.

Fair comments. I think what bothers me about it, is that I'm not satisfied leaving the font to do all the work and feel obligated to alter it in some way to make it more "ownable" and unique. Hmmm, I think I'll be presenting this to the client as a challenge since they also want to differentiate themselves from their competitors.

Additional comments welcome!

The meeting of N and E ends up too dark.

I like the font. Is it the same like they currently use?
Maybe adjust the kerning between /N/ & /E/ making the vertical line lighter than for the /L/. (The horizontal lines in the /E/ let it appear heavier than it is)

On a different note, if you have a look at their website a sans serif, could be possible as well.
I tried the logo in a stencil sans serif

I think you guys are spot on...Something felt off-balance about it even though the vertical stroke of the "E" matched the thickness of the "L". Here it is thinned out. Now that it is more consistent with the angled stroke of the "N" it flows better. Did I take it too far though? Now the "L" feels a little heavy.

emanuer,
Not sure what website you are referring to? This is for a new company (no website yet). I ruled out the sans-serifs early on as I believe the serif font better communicates the brand attributes listed. They want a sophisticated boutique feel.

Thank you so much for the comments.

Why not hire a professional?

Not sure I follow Frode. Are you implying it is unprofessional to solicit critique so I must be an amateur? Or maybe you are just really insulted by my work and therefore consider it hopeless? Elaborate a little next time.

I think the changes on the thickness of the E have helped. But is the spacing between the A and the N looking a little tight? I might try increasing it a little.

On the whole I wonder if having the type tracked so tightly is the right approach though. It might be an idea to go the other way and space the letters out. It could give the wordmark a more indulgent, expansive feel, which may give it a more classic, sophisticated look, whereas at the moment it's looking slightly edgy, especially with those sharp serifs.

Hope that helps

Merging letter together is not very original, the word itself is fairly common, and most importantly there's also this lump of whitespace between L and A. If anything, letters should better be pushed apart rather than together to help balancing the whitespace.

Have you considered something along these lines?

It does, thanks Peter...that was always intended as one of the proposed concepts. I just wanted to give then an option for something edgier/unique.

No harm intended. Sorry about that. Guess I percieved it as amateurish, yes. The whitespace mostly. How about matching the E stem to the N stem?

Igdesign,
I thought it is a new logo for the site http://www.lanefurniture.com/

About the Weight of /N/ /E/, I agree it it may be a bit too tight now.
Another point is the /A/ /N/. The horizontal line of the /N/ crates an optical illusion which lets the end stroke of the /A/ appear to be asymmetrical, although it is perfect. An explanation of what I mean is here: Crossed lines can appear broken

I personally find the logo suggested by apankrat beautiful. Although I don't know how versatile it is.
Your current logo proposal will be perfectly identifiable at small sizes, business cards, letter heads, etc.

Apankrat, thanks for the recommendation. I tried it (quickly) and especially like how the the "L" and "A" link up but I'm afraid this wouldn't work well in real-world use for us. I will certainly bookmark that technique for future use!

Frode, No harm done. This is an experiment for me. I did try using the stem of the "N" early on and it definitely doesn't work.

emanuer, No furniture...IT Services/staffing firm. Great type design reference. I think I have been able to address that illusion as well as balance out the neg/positive space better. May continue to refine if this is chosen, but here is where I netted out:

Wait, it is for IT services? I don't understand how your keywords fit at all. And I think the vanishing thin strokes idea has great potential. Work with the joins between the letters, and the relationship between the 2 diagonal strokes. Maybe try some totally different ideas too.

I didn't write the brief but in their defense it's not the kind of IT Services you are probably thinking of. The business development has been put on hold now so I won't be working on this anymore. Thanks again for all the input. Got a lot out of it.

It's actually quite readable, at least at this size range it is. You may have a bit of trouble when you really scale it down, though, but otherwise you're fine. Legibilitiy issues aside, though, you're going to need to add something more to this in order to achieve all of the things you listed there.