I need to preface this here: I am not going to ask for any money for start-up costs, or for any assistance in art, programming or designing with the only payment being exposure. This isn't me trying to shift work onto anyone else, but rather, a case of someone who's really green that's trying to find out how to do certain things at all. This year, my fiance and I are hoping to set up our board game company. The company has been in some level of creation for the past three years, with the actual game designs stretching back as early as 2008. As of this year, we are very close to finally filling out paperwork to have this notarized as a company proper and have a kickstarter out for our first game by October. There are some issues currently cropping up however. The name of the company and getting a logo for it. Our current company- Slightly Offensive Games- was originally created based on a game that's currently been indefinitely shelved. While it can somewhat fit our other games that are close to release (one being a game about a group of orphans fighting boogeymen via deductive reasoning in a Mafia-style mystery game, the other being about two armies fighting each other in Medieval-style infantry combat), Fiance is leaning away from the name for a few reasons. The title doesn't fit with his preferred direction in games, with a lot of the major games currently being designed as fairly serious and crunch-heavy math-based games The acronym for the company, SOG, is a word he finds kind of gross and not at all suiting for a company However, he has already given out several dozen business cards and build up a reputation for one of the games already under the name 'Slightly Offensive Games'. And all of the websites we've accrued for the company are under the name 'Slightly Offensive Games'. I do not know if it's worth changing the name at this late stage, when we're already listed and known (at least in the NJ-PA-NY tri-state area, and a handful of national board-game contests by the name of 'Slightly Offensive Games'). If we do change it, I'm not sure what we can change it to either. Right now, I'm kind of stuck on SOG, but I'm willing to change it if it's just too poor of a choice with the company name. Another thing is we're currently looking for a logo. One of our friends gave us some pointers for a logo design: it needs to be simple, something that can be shrunk down to an 1x1 inch square but still be recognizable, so it can be placed on packaging as a mark as well as all over our company sites. But at the same time, we're not having a good time creating something like this. I've made a bunch of designs, but each one has been turned down, as well as other designs from low-cost logo designers. I want to hire a logo designer to make one from scratch, but he wants to have a design mostly-ready first before we go to someone, in case of indecisiveness. Which, to be fair, is an understandable problem, but at the same time it makes it harder to make a design when we don't have a name and just a very general guideline that ends up getting upended every few weeks. Does anyone know of good tips for logo design, or a logo company that we can contact? I can list the game designs we have on the works, including the two that are closest to getting placed on Kickstarter and advertised, but right now I just want to at least get the company information finalized, so I can fix up the company Facebook and tumblr accounts, and we'll be able to set up the first of the Kickstarters at the end of September.
There's definitely benefit to having some design work done going in, because it's expensive to sit down with a designer and have them walk you through any possible relevant questions to help formulate the best and most relevant design. At the same time, they know the questions to ask. I don't know anyone specifically in logo design, but since you should carry some of the same design ideas over onto your site, questions to answer before you go to a designer, even if you don't have concrete ideas, are: What colors are you using in your overall design and visuals? What makes your brand unique (overall - what niche do you fill? what do you want to appeal to your audience with)? Are there any images you want associated with you (for one of the bike stores I work with, they incorporated the distinctive silhouette of a local bike bridge, another uses a chainring as a part of the logo)? Do you want an image or just logotype? (also I would totally go with the name you already have traction with - rep is hard to build, and harder if you get a reputation for indecisiveness, plus saying SO Games loudly enough long enough might deter SOG)
Seems to me the big first question to answer is the business name to use. It sounds like there is some dispute about it. I think you're jumping the gun trying to create a logo when the name isn't settled.
Ok Ive done some logo work and honestly i dont think you're at the stage yet to go to any kind of professional. You'd be wasting time and money--you say you already have gone through designs of your own as well as other people because you dont know what you want. Don't bother having a design before you hire someone to make you a design, thats inefficent use of your time and theirs. DO have: A name A color set An idea of whether you want text or images or both A general feel (sophisticated, playful, punk, etc) Once those are firm, go to a designer and have them give you a set of thumbnails--i do ten usually but anything from five to twenty is pretty normal. Talk through what you like about each version, what you dont, and the they can synthesize something that should work, and you can move the hell on. Best advice here i think is pick one thing and stuck to it. I dont see that theres anything wrong with the name you have that justifies throwing out all your hard work and recognizability. And if you're throwing out your guidelines every few weeks theres something really wonky going on here. Like, are you guys scared of actually doing this? Is he displacing some sort of "who am i really" thing onto the business? Is there something else thats making you guys engineer roadblocks?
