Every couple of weeks, the artists here in the design shop post on the walls a bit of their favorite work from the previous ten days or so. Then the design team “votes” on the best work of all those that are submitted. Each of the designers with the best work gets a small gift card as well as the applause and respect of their peers. (I say this a little tongue in cheek—in truth there is usually much joking around and the good-natured ribbing you’d expect). Often times the designs that are presented were not selected by the client—but are amazingly good and deserving of some recognition. Thus the reason for the get-together (it’s definitely not a meeting).

We’ve been doing this 2-3 times a month for almost ten years, and the incredible quality of the design we hang up on the wall each time we get together never ceases to amaze me. It’s a good reminder of the incredibly talented people I get to work with every single day. Last week’s gathering featured about 30 logo, stationery, and website designs. Here’ are two of my favorites (in both cases here, the client ultimately selected another composition)…

The first is for a golf course restaurant called Tomasso’s that uses lettering to suggest the idea of spaghetti in addition to a nice icon that represents both golf and a pasta bowl (I’m getting hungry just looking at it):

The second is one of my favorite logo designs I’ve seen in a while. It is a simple, custom lettered, logotype, and in my opinion, a great logo…

See more great logo design in our gallery at Logoworks.com.

As I mentioned a week or so ago (here), we get far more requests for icons in logos than logotypes. When an icon reflects the simple idea that a brand represents, they make great logos. But if the icon is a symbol that’s not obviously connected to the product or company name, well, it’s less important. In those cases, a logo made up of a unique type treatment may be more effective.

Here are two logotypes from the Logoworks archive that I happen to like very much. The first was created for a client who asked for a high-tech logo in black and a vibrant red. They also asked for something clean and simple. This was one idea we presented:

The next logo was created for a company that specializes in community governance models. They asked for something “minimalist” and simple. Our designers presented this as one of the options:

I like both for their simplicity. But perhaps the most important strength of a typographic logo is that the only image the customer sees/reads is the company name. Something to think about when you create your next logo.