Hello to all the designers who have participated in my logo design contest.
The amount, and in most cases the quality of responses I have received has been overwhelming. I want to thank each and every one of you for the time and effort you have put forth in helping me reach my goal of getting a cool new logo. A lot of you sent in multiple designs and many of you worked on developing different versions of the same design. I appreciate all of your hard work.

It's unfortunate that there ends up being just one "winner", (congratulations to Mugen!) There was a lot of really good, creative work submitted. If only I could win the Lottery, I would send checks to all of you!

Special recognition and appreciation goes out to Charles Sels, whose 12 entries were all variations on one cool icon. Charles was great to work with. He excels at listening and responding quickly to the client's concerns and wishes. His professional approach will serve him well in future contests and wherever he chooses to work.

Another talented designer who made my decision difficult was designabot. He had an awesome, top notch icon and kept developing it, following the changing whims of this client. He picked up clues and tips on the client's desires by not only carefully reading comments directed at him but also by reading into comments I left on other designer's pages, showing an understanding of the importance of knowing the client. In his time
with 99designs he has won 26 contests, with a "win/enter" ratio of better than 1 win for every 8 contests entered. When you consider how many people enter these contests, that an amazing statistic.

Of course there were many others who also did nice work. Too numerous to name them all, they include designers such as (in no particular order) — cindymon, vskeerthu, uhlats, Ledevil, water with ice, Kaedium, GBdrawer, anicole design, etechstudios, Pringles 20, iMekker and wolv. Thanks to all of you and all the others too who took the time and effort to help me out. It's been a great and fruitful experience for me. I am humbled and grateful.

with much appreciation,

Charles Colladay
BigDayPictures

An Important Note:

The main purpose of this contest is to develop a logo for use on a business card. With that in mind I would appreciate seeing how a 2 line street address, phone number and web address would tie into the design. The street address and phone number don't need to be a large size but the web address should be plenty large enough to be easily readable. The logo will also appear on my website but the look of the website will be changing so you do not need to design the logo to look good on the website as it currently looks.

I'm sorry for not posting this information in my original design brief and my apologies to those of you who have submitted entries before getting this information.

Thank you!

4807 Mercury Street Suite F
San Diego, CA 92111

(858) 268-9900

www.BigDayPics.com

more guidance on colors, tag line, business name:

I would like to emphasize a minor point I made in my original comments. Black is not working for me on this project, even as a type color. Try grays or browns instead.
For the most part the same with red, especially bright red. I like orange or even a shade between red and orange could work. I would like to see more entries with the three
specific color combos mentioned in my original comments. I did mention magenta/purple before but I'm not diggin' it so much now especially as the dominant color. If used it should be more as a secondary accent in combination with orange.

As for the tag line, I am fairly certain I will be using it on my business card so please try to incorporate it into your design. As mentioned earlier, it should be subdued. That's been done successfully in some entries by using a smaller, lighter font in a lighter neutral color like gray or brown.

And finally, while there are exceptions to these last two points, I generally prefer BigDayPictures to appear with the letters B, D, P in upper case and for each of the three words to be given more or less equal weight. For the most part, I tend to prefer the three words BigDayPictures to be in line with each other.

thanks

Hi everybody - I went away for a day and just logged in and Wow! - 47 entries! Thanks for all the interest in my logo.
I just went through all of them and gave star ratings. Next I'll go back and give each of you individual feedback. Please don't be discouraged with not many stars being handed out, I'm grading on a tough curve. To me, 2 stars is good work. 3 stars is very good, excellent work. I'm reserving 4 stars for most exceptional, outstanding work. And 5 stars...
well there may not be any of those except perhaps the winning design that I end up going with! Thanks to all of you for your efforts!

Following are some ideas/suggestions of mine in terms of color palettes though I don't want put too many constraints on your creativity.

I am leaning towards colors that are not too bright, rather somewhat muted but not necessarily pastel. Some themes that sound good to me are:
I like orange, maybe in combination with some shade of magenta and/or pink or yellow.
Green and pink with maybe a little brown or light gray.
Blue and green with some light gray.
Designs could include any of these colors in multiple shades of the same colors.
Don't think I want black but rather browns, medium gray, light gray, white.
Not so much dark and heavy, I like more light and airy. I like white space.
Hope this helps!

note to iMekker: you are fast! You got two entries in before I had a chance to write these comments. My apologies.