A Logo Contest with a Business Model
In early October, my favorite Utah comic shop, Dr. Volts, ran a T-Shirt design contest, with the winner getting about $50 in product. The rules were simple: Design a cool T-Shirt that the owner could sell to customers. When I emailed Dave, the owner, about any prerequisites, he essentially said that color or design was up to the artist, and we should just give it our best.
Being a technical communicator, I took a look at the Dr. Volt's Website, and looked at their older logos, and decided if I was going to win, I would need to make a few assumptions:
1. The t-shirt to advertise the store.
2. It should have a comics, or superhero, motif, since that's what the store sold.
3. The picture should be easy to read and comprehend at a glance from a short distance.
4. The logo should have some kind of contact information on it (at least the store URL) so Dr. Volts could get more business.
Based on these principles, I came up with four logos (actually more with certain variations, but a base four really) that I thought would at least put me in the running. I'm a technical writer, not a designer, but I have a few graphic design skills, so I spent a week putting them together. This is what I came up with:
A. The Base Logo: This one I just used fonts and some minimal design.
B. The Refined Logo: This was another text logo, but it was more sleek and refined. Also notice I did a better job incorporating the "lightning" logo that is on the store front -- not perfect, but still it looked good.
C. The Superhero Logo: This logo I actually tried to incorporate a Superhero in it. My drawing skills aren't perfect, but I thought the flying hero, with a blur that led to the store name was pretty good (although my wife thought the guy looked like Peter Pan).
D. The Villain Logo: If you look at the current Dr. Volts Website, you'll see different incarnations. All of them have a mohawk, and all have glasses with "volts" on them. Otherwise, they have different interpretations. Since this guy was a "Dr." I figured bald (like Luthor, Silvana, and so many other mad scientists) was the way to go. While I didn't strictly go with the existing pictures, I thought this was the most stylish.
Overall, I thought I had some solid entries. I even chatted with the owner, and asked if my stuff was "in the right direction." He said yes, he liked my stuff, but he was going to extend the contest a few more weeks (late October) to collect more entries. Knowing that I wasn't off base, I thought I had a good chance for success.
Well, I didn't win, but the winner surprised me. See the attached link to see what did.
I was a bit disappointed, but it appears that the owner didn't share my premises. As you can see, the logo really doesn't indicate superheroes at all, except maybe for the words "The Comic Collection" scrolled in cursive type. There is no URL or location information, and while the "lightning" logo is there, as my wife put it, "it looks like art from a tattoo parlor." Also, by looking at the graphic you can see that at-a-glance, few people would probably recognize it was a t-shirt for a comic book shop.
The owner apparently just wanted something that looked cool, and wasn't concerned about his business image, or attracting customers. In this case, the t-shirt was just a t-shirt, nothing more. The owner did say to me later that he might use other images submitted for the contest (a thought that I find very interesting), but this is the one he liked.
What I learned from the experience, is that when you do work for clients, you should set expectations from the start. I thought I had done that, but perhaps with a few more questions, I would've found out that he didn't care about advertising at all (an attitude my other clients would be stunned by), or that he wanted something more artistic and less business-oriented.
Still, while the winning logo is pretty, I didn't feel so bad losing after I saw what won. I didn't necessarily create the best submissions, but I felt I gave a strong showing given my knowledge and constraints. Besides ... it was fun creating the logos, and I'm sure I can recycle the ideas for another client.
Being a technical communicator, I took a look at the Dr. Volt's Website, and looked at their older logos, and decided if I was going to win, I would need to make a few assumptions:
1. The t-shirt to advertise the store.
2. It should have a comics, or superhero, motif, since that's what the store sold.
3. The picture should be easy to read and comprehend at a glance from a short distance.
4. The logo should have some kind of contact information on it (at least the store URL) so Dr. Volts could get more business.
THE SUBMISSIONS
Based on these principles, I came up with four logos (actually more with certain variations, but a base four really) that I thought would at least put me in the running. I'm a technical writer, not a designer, but I have a few graphic design skills, so I spent a week putting them together. This is what I came up with:
A. The Base Logo: This one I just used fonts and some minimal design.
B. The Refined Logo: This was another text logo, but it was more sleek and refined. Also notice I did a better job incorporating the "lightning" logo that is on the store front -- not perfect, but still it looked good.
C. The Superhero Logo: This logo I actually tried to incorporate a Superhero in it. My drawing skills aren't perfect, but I thought the flying hero, with a blur that led to the store name was pretty good (although my wife thought the guy looked like Peter Pan).
D. The Villain Logo: If you look at the current Dr. Volts Website, you'll see different incarnations. All of them have a mohawk, and all have glasses with "volts" on them. Otherwise, they have different interpretations. Since this guy was a "Dr." I figured bald (like Luthor, Silvana, and so many other mad scientists) was the way to go. While I didn't strictly go with the existing pictures, I thought this was the most stylish.
Overall, I thought I had some solid entries. I even chatted with the owner, and asked if my stuff was "in the right direction." He said yes, he liked my stuff, but he was going to extend the contest a few more weeks (late October) to collect more entries. Knowing that I wasn't off base, I thought I had a good chance for success.
THE WINNER
Well, I didn't win, but the winner surprised me. See the attached link to see what did.
I was a bit disappointed, but it appears that the owner didn't share my premises. As you can see, the logo really doesn't indicate superheroes at all, except maybe for the words "The Comic Collection" scrolled in cursive type. There is no URL or location information, and while the "lightning" logo is there, as my wife put it, "it looks like art from a tattoo parlor." Also, by looking at the graphic you can see that at-a-glance, few people would probably recognize it was a t-shirt for a comic book shop.
The owner apparently just wanted something that looked cool, and wasn't concerned about his business image, or attracting customers. In this case, the t-shirt was just a t-shirt, nothing more. The owner did say to me later that he might use other images submitted for the contest (a thought that I find very interesting), but this is the one he liked.
What I learned from the experience, is that when you do work for clients, you should set expectations from the start. I thought I had done that, but perhaps with a few more questions, I would've found out that he didn't care about advertising at all (an attitude my other clients would be stunned by), or that he wanted something more artistic and less business-oriented.
Still, while the winning logo is pretty, I didn't feel so bad losing after I saw what won. I didn't necessarily create the best submissions, but I felt I gave a strong showing given my knowledge and constraints. Besides ... it was fun creating the logos, and I'm sure I can recycle the ideas for another client.
Labels: comics, contest, logo, submission
posted by Smackey at
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