ComputerRepair.com Logo Contest Winner March 11th, 2005 by Mike
On Monday evening, was was informed by ComputerRepair.com that I’d been chosen as the winner of their logo design contest. First off, thanks go to Erik J. Barzeski, who told me of the contest.
This is the very same contest I spoke of last week, in my Just Good Business post. In the end, good was served, when the logo entry which used a pre-made logo was disqualified. I’m not sure how this impacted the voting, since I didn’t have access to internal voting forums, but I suspect it didn’t hurt my chances.
Whatever the case, I felt it would be interesting to show my sketches and final submissions to the contest here, to document my process of logo design for those curious about it. I hope to do more of this documentation of work, because it provides insight into a designer’s thought processes to the curious.
Sketches
First, I went to a Miquelrius sketchbook, my normal starting point for capturing ideas. I knew the logo ComputerRepair.com wanted should convey the idea of a network, service providers and clients, so I began playing with various ways of conceptualizing a network.
Here’s a scan of the concepts page:
Final Art
I wanted to keep effort minimal (not knowing if I’d win or not), so I went right from the best concept, to final art. Normally this would be a longer process, involving the client’s input on what they liked, and my explanations of why I drew what I did.
The two best concepts are circled on the sketches page, though in the end I preferred the more ‘galactic’ looking concept for its simplicity and feeling of movement.
At the center of this logo is the client, around which everything revolves. Circling the client dot is the ComputerRepair.com network, which provides clients with service providers to solve their IT needs. The 4 outer dots are the service providers, connected to clients through the ComputerRepair.com network.
Here are the 4 color entries I submitted to the contest:
I wanted something bright (per the contest directions) yet business-like. I began with a blue/green palette (1), a variation with black logotype (2), then adding in warmer colors (3 & 4) to round out my submissions.
Number 4 was my favorite, because the orange ‘client’ ball at the center felt like a sun, the blue spiral arms of the galaxy representing the network, and green dots for the service providers. I also preferred the weight of black text on the ComputerRepair.com logotype.
I also took a chance by writing a new, simple tagline for the service: ‘IT Services Network’ which tied in with the galaxy concept. It also simplified and clarified the tagline being used with their current logo: “Manage the Process.â€?
ComputerRepair chose number 4 for entry into the contest:
I’m very pleased to have won, though there is a chance my logo won’t be used by ComputerRepair.com (declared in the rules). It depends on the company, and there may even be some competing work from other designers — I don’t know. If things go well, the logo will be used, if not, I have the satisfaction of winning and $750. :-)
More Logo Design Experiences
If this short post on my processes has interested you, I’d suggest reading Creating a Business Logo, a blog article written by Ian Landsman, founder of UserScape software.
Ian and I worked together on his company and product logos. When we finished, he used samples of my work and wrote out his thoughts on the process from a client’s point of view. His post was very enlightening, because I learned about his decisions and thoughts thoughts through the entire logo design journey.
Ian’s post was informational, but even better, his article has been directly responsible for bringing two new clients to the firm I work for, both in need of logo designs. So, not only did I enjoy the process with Ian, now I’m able to recreate the experiences for two other firms excited about new corporate identities. Blogging does pay off!
I hope this article was informative and interesting. If you have comments or thoughts, feel free to leave them here. If you’re in need of a logo for your business, I’d love to speak with you about it — just send me an email.
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