opinions on a couple logos i'm working on...
 

so i've been working on a couple logos for various things at school and i wanted arbitrary opinions from people not associated with what they are about.

this first one is for my advertising campaigns class, it's for Lubbock Reads, which is their upcoming version of the One Book, One Community program

http://img134.imageshack.us/img134/4...lish5qu.th.gif

the second is for our climbing club t-shirt
edit: this would never be used in a small setting, it would strictly be for the back of a shirt, probably about 150% the size seen in large form.

http://img134.imageshack.us/img134/9...nal11ns.th.gif

be honest! i need these to be effective and flawless, especially the Lubbock Reads one

The Lubbock Reads one is nice work(altho pervs like myself might see spread legs(first impression), not pages.) Not sure of the significance of the windmill tho...might drop that if it's just 'there'. Just a thought, but could a sketchy cityscape be done as the pages of the open book?

When I saw the second one for the climbing club, I liked it before I clicked for the larger version. Something about the smaller T inside the larger was confusing...too linear, maybe, I don't know, but it didn't transfer well as a large work.

Just my 2c, take it for what it's worth. Good Luck!

I agree with ng on the Lubbock Reads logo. The larger version looks much better than the smaller one and unless the windmill signifies something, replace it with something that does. But I like it nevertheless.

The second one I dunno... I assume the T is for Texas?

Is the big T with a little T inside a logo for your school? If so, I like it. If you put those T's together yourself...well, then it's a bit busy. I like the idea of the climbers on a logo.

The first one is nice when it is large, but it is not so very nice small. Will this be on posters (good) or bookmarks (bad)? If it is going to be on big AND small things, then delete some of the elements for the small version.

the double T is our school symbol (as seen HERE ), sorry i should have mentioned that before hand. that part wasn't my work, simply the climbers on the side. i agree it is a little busy, busier than the logo used to be, but it's the "official" logo, which is the only one the university will give us permission to use.

as for the windmill, it's a bit of a well recognized symbol around here (west texas) that's what it's there for, it's also to help push the impression of the book doubling as a field. on smaller versions the bottom tagline would most likely be removed. this logo would be used on everything from newspaper ads to press releases to posters.

Good stuff. I do have some suggestions for improvement...

On the Lubbock Reads one, I'm fine with the placement of the icon of the windmill, especially if there is some significance about it. What I don't like about it is that it looks like clipart just plopped down there. The book and sun are stylish and brush-strokey looking, then the windmill is very "cut and paste." If the windmill was redrawn in that brush stroke style, then it would make a better fit. I'd also make the windmill a bit larger, and put less detail in the support structure. As for the text, there appears to be a tad too much space between the L and the U. Also in the tagline, the decender (letter p) interferes with the line below it. If you have a smallcaps version of that font, that would eliminate the decenders. Otherwise, I'd eliminate that line below the tagline.

The climbing one is another good idea, but the fact that the "TT" logo is SO big and blocky, and the climbers are so much smaller in comparison, they look like an afterthought. (which of course they are, seeing as the "TT" logo already existed) Also the ropes look a little like spider webs. I'd go with just one climbing figure, and make him much larger, perhaps as large as 3/4 the height of the "TT" logo itself, and lose the ropes, or do something else with them. Maybe have a few coils of rope hanging from the figure's waist then dangling from there. Were you planning on doing some text along with the logo?

The book is good but the thin pages do make it looked like a fat person spread wide. You could make the pages thicker and have the end of the pages suggest the rough edges of paper a bit more. I dunno.

If the school would let you, I would make a large climbing figure over the TT logo. The you could incorporate the climbing club text in there somewhere. Here is a basic example of what I mean(your figure would be dressed or very simply illustrated and not shown humping the schools logo):