Graphic/Logo assistance

The social club of The Greenhouse

Moderator: GH Moderators

Post Reply
Davoraider
Noa Nadruku
Posts: 167
Joined: April 13, 2010, 10:17 am
Favourite Player: Campo

Graphic/Logo assistance

Post by Davoraider »

Hi,

thinking of starting a new business up and I need help with creating a logo. I have heard of websites/companies that will do you a logo and if you like it you can buy it off them. Has anyone else heard of these types of companies or is there anyone on here with Graphic experience that may want to help me out. I would pay whatever the going rate is for a logo.

Company name is

Cool You Commercial

Blue in colour

I want a fan on the left end of the logo blowing across the letters creating a leaning affect. I want precipitation/water drops coming of some of the letters that then drop into a puddle below which then flows into a sentence below that states specialising in commercial refrigeration service and sales.

Any help appreciated.

Cheers
Dave
Member#5659
User avatar
-TW-
Mal Meninga
Posts: 35369
Joined: July 2, 2007, 11:41 am

Re: Graphic/Logo assistance

Post by -TW- »

Gazzaf on here is good with graphics, there's a few others like green_hammock and fistinz as well
Shadow Boxer
Ricky Stuart
Posts: 9174
Joined: May 20, 2008, 2:50 pm

Re: Graphic/Logo assistance

Post by Shadow Boxer »

Is that a new company Dave ?

That name won't search well in Google.
Image
User avatar
T_R
Don Furner
Posts: 17276
Joined: August 4, 2006, 9:41 am
Location: Noosa

Re: Graphic/Logo assistance

Post by T_R »

Been through this a few times. Can I make some suggestions?

Firstly, you seem quite set on an idea for a logo. If I could suggest, be a bit flexible. Go to a company like freelancer.com and put a job out to bid ($30 will be heaps) to design 5 sample logos. Give some general suggestions, but let them take you in different directions. If you don't mind dropping a bit more, why not the job to a couple of different companies and get a range of 15 logos to work with? Give the other companies a slightly different brief, just to get some options in front of you.

Often, one of the logos will be perfect and you can go with it. If not, take the design that is closest and then go to a local designer and give it to him as a guide. You will get a much, much more polished final product than you would than asking someone to go with the project from the start. If you will have more design work in the future, it's probably worth working with a local guy to develop a relationship so you can maintain a look and feel across your brand. If it's a one off, you'll often find an overseas company that can get you what you are looking for.

SB has a very good point about Google. You are going to be page ten, mate. If you are in any way relying on internet hits (and if you're not, you should be), then you need something more distinctive. Try misspelling a word (Cool you Kommercial) or even just make it a single word - (CoolU Commercial). Otherwise, you have to do what we did and take a common name, but then spend a bloody fortune in money and time in getting your ranking up. Unless you have a big and savvy web marketing department, you're much better to find something a bit distinctive from the start.

Fun times, opening a company. I never get sick of it. Bloody stressful trying to get it all right, though.
Image

Son, we live in a world that has forums, and those forums have to be guarded by Mods. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Nickman? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Lucy, and you curse GE. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know -- that GE’s moderation, while tragic, probably saved lives; and my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, keeps threads on track and under the appropriately sized, highlighted green headings.
You want moderation because deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that forum -- you need me on that forum. We use words like "stay on topic," "use the appropriate forum," "please delete." We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punch line. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very moderation that I provide and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather that you just said "thank you" and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you get a green handle and edit a post. Either way, I don't give a DAMN what you think about moderation.
cholztrad
Chris O'Sullivan
Posts: 934
Joined: July 23, 2006, 8:25 pm

Re: Graphic/Logo assistance

Post by cholztrad »

Hi Davo,

a lot of what T_R has said is spot on, I run a small Graphic / Web Design / Print company (flashnfunky.com) though i primarily work out of a market. I'll say there's ups and downs of getting your logos created by an online company compared to a local design shop. Pro's will be the better rates and some online companies do offer the 10 or so different samples though once you've approved your design your support is no longer existent, this is a big issue. If you have a good local designer that you can reach by phone at different hours it's going to save you a lot of hassles in the long run, especially if you plan to place your logo across different media. I get a lot of customers calling me post job just needing the logo in a certain format or size dimension, or to ask for a extra addition added to the logo for a 1 off use, or to ask what font i used.. ect. ect... i tend to do these for free as most of the time its a simple edit but a online company will charge you near what the logo cost you to create.

Some feedback on your logo concept. I think it's to complex, not in a creation aspect but in a visual aspect... there is to much for the customer to look at imo, I tend to tell customers try only give the users 1 or 2 points to look at, with your concept they are going to be looking at the fan, then the drops, then follow them down... imo the user should just look at your logo and get it instantly. I'm also not a fan of the leaning effect, it should be bold and in their face.

A simpler design i will recommend could be:

- Small fan on the top left just above the C
- Cool You Commercial <-- In a blue ice blocks font
- Drips
- Commercial Refrigeration < -- in a smaller font watery italic font I think having having all the other font is to much content for a logo
Image
Davoraider
Noa Nadruku
Posts: 167
Joined: April 13, 2010, 10:17 am
Favourite Player: Campo

Re: Graphic/Logo assistance

Post by Davoraider »

Thanks heaps for the responses.

I will try freelancer as a starting point and perhaps try something myself with a simple variation if my idea.

One thing I am just having trouble understanding is the domain name stuff. I do not have a domain name yet and from some of the comments I need to do a little thinking in this area. I am relying on web hits. I really do not understand how mis-spelling my domain will help me get to the top of the list. Can someone please explain in a little more detail or perhaps any good links to sites that have a more detailed explanation.

Thanks again.

Dave
Member#5659
Shadow Boxer
Ricky Stuart
Posts: 9174
Joined: May 20, 2008, 2:50 pm

Re: Graphic/Logo assistance

Post by Shadow Boxer »

It's complicated Dave, the trouble with your name is it doesn't actually describe what you do. i.e. someone searching for commercial refrigeration repairs wont get your company in the first few pages.

There's a bit here but best to speak to a professional if you are targeting the internet for business.

http://www.sitepronews.com/2012/03/01/k ... h-results/
Image
cholztrad
Chris O'Sullivan
Posts: 934
Joined: July 23, 2006, 8:25 pm

Re: Graphic/Logo assistance

Post by cholztrad »

I won't suggest misspelling the words, it's doesn't come off professional.
Shadow Boxer wrote:It's complicated Dave, the trouble with your name is it doesn't actually describe what you do. i.e. someone searching for commercial refrigeration repairs wont get your company in the first few pages.

There's a bit here but best to speak to a professional if you are targeting the internet for business.

http://www.sitepronews.com/2012/03/01/k ... h-results/
That's not correct SW you could have http://www.catsanddogs.com.au and still get a 1st page ranking in seo for the keywords commercial refrigeration repairs. SEO is complex but I'll try explain it as simply as possible.

Google has a algorithm to sort webpages for each keyword, how it does this is always changing but some consistent key parts of the algorithm has been.

- URL (are the keywords in there) in your case your homepage could be http://www.CoolYouCommercial.com but you could have another page http://www.CoolYouCommercial.com/commercialcooling - to help with rankings for the phrase commercial cooling

- On Site SEO
-Page content (are the keywords on your page, having the keywords in bold and underlined give you bonus points)
-Does your website have a sitemap
-Web page meta tags with search phrases in them

- Off site SEO (last i checked out weighs everything else)

Off site SEO pretty much means the quality of links going from other pages to yours, this is the bulk of the work a SEO agent does. This is mainly signing up to forums, blog providers and web site directories and then leaving a link with some keywords into a page (placing a link to your website in this forum is part of offsite SEO) It's pretty tricky though, like a SEO agent could advertise 1000 off site page articles but another SEO agent could advertise 250 off page articles and the 250 could be better as they also factor in the quality of the website the article is on as each page has a sort of google reliability score so to speak. Like a new page will be scored 0 and gumtree will be scored closer to 10, having a respected sites like gumtree backing your off site seo also helps as they can generate you clicks from users browsing their sites.

To get a good SEO rep working for you your looking at spending $1000 a month minimum and you generally won't see 1st page rankings for 4 - 6 months and to keep the ranking you'll need to keep spending $1000ish a month. A lot of reps will give you promises but make sure you read their promises as a lot of the time it could be we promise you ranking improvements within two weeks, this is mostly being ranked from page 200 to page 199 which doesn't mean ****.

Think of it like a fight between your competition for 1st page rankings and budget is always the winner.

I've had the issue in the past where I had great working SEO and then google released a update on how the robots search the sites and i went from page 1 to page can't find you in a second.

Another thing i'll mention if you decide to go ahead is to add your state and large suburbs near by in your keywords e.g. if your word was cooling factory then your competing with the world for that phrase but if it was cooling factory sydney then you've elimination 99.9 percent of those other links.
Image
cholztrad
Chris O'Sullivan
Posts: 934
Joined: July 23, 2006, 8:25 pm

Re: Graphic/Logo assistance

Post by cholztrad »

Personally unless you have a big budget i wouldn't bother with SEO. I've been giving these links to my customers that have asked about SEO and they love me for it, each page is it's own search engine with not nearly as much competition as google.

Gumtree.com.au
Quicksales.com.au
Cracker.com.au
Locanto.com.au
Quokka.com.au
TradingPost.com.au
Oddsw0p.com.au
Freeclassifieds-Australia.com.au
http://www.truebuy.com.au/
http://www.gosell.com.au/
http://www.ozefair.com.au/
http://www.throngo.com.au/
http://www.localclassifieds.com.au/
http://www.couriermail.com.au/weekendshopper
http://Www.kioskonline.com.au
http://adelaide-classifieds.info/
http://australiaclassifieds.org/
http://brisbane-classifieds.info/
http://melbourne-classifieds.info/
http://nzclassifieds.net/
http://perth-classifieds.info/
http://sydney-classifieds.info/
kioskonline.com.au
http://www.allclassifieds.com.au
http://www.westlancer.com.au
http://yourclassifieds.com.au/
http://www.hotfrog.com.au/
http://www.traderoo.com.au/
http://quokka.com.au/
http://www.free-classifieds-australia.com.au
http://www.findalion.com.au
http://www.bimbil.com.au
http://www.oddswop.com.au

EDIT: Going through the list for a customer, links might drop off... that means they no longer work.
Image
Post Reply