Need help choosing a logo for a website I'll be launching soon

acidlacedpenguin

So yeah, I've commissioned a logo design contest and I'd like to get some feedback from a wide variety of internet strangers rather than just through friends/family on facebook.
For context, the site is called RideTripster and it is a ride sharing service. It's intended to be an easily searchable index of drivers who are looking for passengers when driving from city to city. So sort of like couch-surfing or using craigslist/kijiji/newspaper ads.

If I can get some of you guys to rate these top 8 designs for me I'd really appreciate the feedback.
*edited out link*

the competitors:

ceres

I would prefer it if you'd kill the survey and inline the images here so that people can really give you meaningful feedback on one or more of them.

acidlacedpenguin

okay, working on grabbing the larger preview images, once I've got them hosted and inlined in here I'll kill the link.

BlindZenDriver

Here is my thoughts.

Counting from above:
1 through 3 - all a bit busy to look at.
4 through 7 - I like the colours, typeface and style but they sort of make me thing it is more about what is at the travel goal rather than how to do the trip.
8 - The one I like the best and I think it gets the A to B idea of traveling across. I'm not so sure about using two colours for the name and also maybe it should be 'RideTripster' rather than 'Ride Tripster' and what is with the empty car.

mts

i like 4 7 and 8

Wassermelone

Speaking as an art professional, 7 is by far the best.

*edit

Actually 7's logo and 8's type. With no exclamation point, no space in Road and Tripster, and fixed kerning. I hacked it together for you:

Jasconius

7 is the best of some fairly average options

curly haired boy

i'm a fan of 6 and 7, because i can see them being scaled to whatever size without readability or recognition issues. basically, you want a logo that you can print in black and white and then copy 17 times and have it still be recognizable.

8 might work, but you've got to remove the exclamation point. remember yahoo?

also seconding the 'smush the two words into one word' thing. keep the colors in the name, i think that's a good touch.

acidlacedpenguin

oh yeah, the ! was something that particular designer added. His first revisions he spelled our name completely wrong :P There's about a day and a half left before we have to decide.

symbolsor

I like 7 with 8's type above. I think I'd keep the color the same for their respective i's though.

NightDragon

I agree with Wasser - that's the one that stood out to me. It's clean and simple and gets the point across. Futhermore, as it has been mentioned, you'd be able to scale it and use it in a lot of applications and it would still be readable, which is really important.

supabeast

It doesn’t matter what you pick—all options are garbage based on cheap stock art. If you want a good logo you need to stop being cheap and hire a designer.

ihmmy

I like 5 the best, it seems the least busy to me. Wassermelone's fixed version is a close second. They all seem a bit busy to me, but that may just be that I find the basic name of hte company awkward to say/read

Jebus314

curly haired boy wrote: »

i'm a fan of 6 and 7, because i can see them being scaled to whatever size without readability or recognition issues. basically, you want a logo that you can print in black and white and then copy 17 times and have it still be recognizable.

8 might work, but you've got to remove the exclamation point. remember yahoo?

also seconding the 'smush the two words into one word' thing. keep the colors in the name, i think that's a good touch.

I agree with this. Not a graphic designer, but I feel like super busy logos are easier to forget, and don't make me like your product anymore. You want something that is simple and catchy. Think nike swoosh.

acidlacedpenguin

supabeast wrote: »

It doesn’t matter what you pick—all options are garbage based on cheap stock art. If you want a good logo you need to stop being cheap and hire a designer.

Umm. I did hire a designer. I hired like 6 of them and I'm paying one a significant chunk of change for a logo... How much money should I pay to get me out of the league of gutter trash?

Wassermelone

Unless he can point to specific stock art that is in these, then I really wouldn't worry about it. While you don't have anything super impressive or new, I think you have one good option.

The Ender

I prefer this one.




This one also catches my eye, but the color choices seem a bit odd.


EDIT: Actually, it's not the colors that are throwing me off - it's the gradient running down the letters. I don't like it.

minirhyder

I vote 7.
The colors stand out and catch the eye, but it's not too busy or overwhelming to look at.

The Ender

7 is nice, but it will look too generic when printed in monochrome and/or scaled down, in my opinion. I prefer logos that have a distinctive shape.

Great Scott

I think 7 is too generic. I vote 8, but agree the exclamation point should be removed.

DrFrylock

As has been mentioned, you want something that will look good in monochrome and something that will still be recognizable on a mobile phone screen or when scaled way out.

Although this was posted in /r/funny, it's a good indication of trends. Minimalism and flatness are 'in' right now.

Of the 1-3 options, I like #2 the best. Few unnecessary gradients. You could do without the exclamation mark.

Of the latter options, I like 7 better than the alternatives. Wassermelone's 7+8 combo, above, is probably the best in the thread including your options.

supabeast

acidlacedpenguin wrote: »

supabeast wrote: »

It doesn’t matter what you pick—all options are garbage based on cheap stock art. If you want a good logo you need to stop being cheap and hire a designer.

Umm. I did hire a designer. I hired like 6 of them and I'm paying one a significant chunk of change for a logo... How much money should I pay to get me out of the league of gutter trash?

Offering to pay one of six people for the work that they do is not hiring a designer. It’s being a cheapass. People with talent and skill don’t waste their time on design contests, which is why these logos look like bad student work.

Tube

That isn't really the topic of this thread though is it? For what it's worth, he's right. "Design contests" are inherently insulting. You should be paying artists outright, the same way you would any other professional. Since this is not the topic of the thread though there will be no further discussion of the issue.

acidlacedpenguin

fair enough. If you'd like to do a better design then please PM me with pricing details and I'll hear your offer. Anyway, we went with the contest because we have to launch with a logo and these choices are better than what I could do on my own. Cheapass would be taking a few hours myself and doing it for free.

back to topic, I'm finding the feedback we've been getting nearly completely opposite from what we expected. We certainly want to pick one that would go well with merch like t-shirts, mugs, etc.

supabeast

I don’t do logo designs, but you can find lots of great designers on dribbble: http://dribbble.com/designers?skills=logo

Enc

8 is the best I think, if you made the "Ride Tripster" text the same brown as the swish.

saint2e

i like 5 and 7, with 7 being the favourite.

Darkewolfe

DrFrylock wrote: »

As has been mentioned, you want something that will look good in monochrome and something that will still be recognizable on a mobile phone screen or when scaled way out.

Although this was posted in /r/funny, it's a good indication of trends. Minimalism and flatness are 'in' right now.

Of the 1-3 options, I like #2 the best. Few unnecessary gradients. You could do without the exclamation mark.

Of the latter options, I like 7 better than the alternatives. Wassermelone's 7+8 combo, above, is probably the best in the thread including your options.

I agree with 2. For what you're doing, a simple logo that's going to be on a white or neutral background is what you want. This is a site that, presumably, will often be viewed on mobile devices. using too much black or dark background on your page is bad design anyway, and you want a logo that'll still be recognizable when viewed scaled way the hell down.

Theungry

I like 7, though prefer Wasser's mock-up with 8's type.

I have a real problem with 8, where I feel like the design pulls the eye completely away from the type so you can look at it and easily miss the name.

MichaelLC

That's a horrible name.

I like @Wassermelone's the best.

bsjezz

be careful with number 7. the logo, layout and lettering are dangerously reminiscent of grooveshark

AndToBeLoved

I really like 8's retro style. However, I can't quite put my finger on it, but something's bugging me about the car...

Ramius

I have to say, none of these communicate pooling or sharing to me. I also find it notable that every single one has the alternating color dots on the 'i's. Was that a design requirement that you fed to them?

1-3 are lame and you should not even consider them. The vehicles look taped on and are stylistically equivalent to a cheap plastic board-game piece. The underline puts too much weight on the right of the logo and the exclamation point is pointless.

4 and 6 have the feel of a UFO for the logo, so I'd say to steer away from those.

5 could maybe be workable if you ditched the gradients, but I worry about it scaled down. In fact there is a scaled down version of it right there in the bottom-right corner, and the image between the words becomes a very indistinguishable blob.

So, it's down to 7 and 8. 7 is alright, though I don't love the italics and the image seems to communicate road-trip or vacationing to me, not ride-sharing. 8 is OK but I don't love the font and those two big circles make me concerned that it will only worked when centered in a page. Like its too big and commanding to be off in the top-left corner. I also feel there are too many color changes from orange to blue to orange to blue to orange to blue.

Derrick

I like Wasser's better than any of the originals.

One thing you need to realize is that scaled down and monochrome, most of these will look dreadful.

acidlacedpenguin

Ramius wrote: »

I have to say, none of these communicate pooling or sharing to me. I also find it notable that every single one has the alternating color dots on the 'i's. Was that a design requirement that you fed to them?

1-3 are lame and you should not even consider them. The vehicles look taped on and are stylistically equivalent to a cheap plastic board-game piece. The underline puts too much weight on the right of the logo and the exclamation point is pointless.

4 and 6 have the feel of a UFO for the logo, so I'd say to steer away from those.

5 could maybe be workable if you ditched the gradients, but I worry about it scaled down. In fact there is a scaled down version of it right there in the bottom-right corner, and the image between the words becomes a very indistinguishable blob.

So, it's down to 7 and 8. 7 is alright, though I don't love the italics and the image seems to communicate road-trip or vacationing to me, not ride-sharing. 8 is OK but I don't love the font and those two big circles make me concerned that it will only worked when centered in a page. Like its too big and commanding to be off in the top-left corner. I also feel there are too many color changes from orange to blue to orange to blue to orange to blue.

it was mostly a result of the organization of the contest. My associate commented on one of the logos asking for the i's dotted that way, everyone else in the contest saw the comment and copied the hell out of it. Same thing happened when we reviewed logos highly, the next round of logos were all eerily similar.

Anyway, I appreciate all of the feedback in here. We ended up going with one that was similar to #6 with a few things smoothed out.