24 Hours to go in the Logo Contest...

[ClarkP]

24 hours left... and a consensus is building around this design:
We like this design very much and it has consistently polled among you guys as the best available entry.  There are others we liked just as much... but none that we could say we liked more than this one.

The other current entries did not have the same impact with us and with you guys. See the polls:

Poll 1, Poll 2, Poll 3.

 

There were MANY good designers who entered very good concepts.  But it looks like among the current entries, this will be the winner.  Now, there might be a completely new entry that is superior... but with our long history of trying to have designers create a logo for us (for over a year!), we'd put the chance of that happening at about 0%.  We are not shutting down entries because it ain't over 'til it's over.

 

So how can we make this design better?  If this wasn't your favorite, what tweaks would you make to bring it into line with your "perfect logo"?  We are still revising this image so your feedback is important.

 

Thank you so much for your help.  Even if your favorite did not win, your feedback has changed the way each logo was updated.  We truly appreciate it!

[Traci -Bexter & Maggie]

In the first poll, this was my favorite design.  However, since then I have found others that I like better (although this one is still cute).  The reason I think is that in the other designs the doodles looked more like doodles than this one does.  It is a cute dog, but I'm not sure it looks as much like a doodle as it could.  I agree about removing the mouth or changing it.  It does seem to make it look too cartoonish.  Also - Why can't the o's in the word doodle have the paw prints?  I thought that was a cute idea!

[Jennifer,Chloe & Myla]

This has been my favorite from the start-I like all the updates to it but alswo agree the smile is weird. Also adding .com would be awesome. (a must I think) I think the dog is cute unless he could have eyebrows or shag at all.

[Allyson, Peri & Taquito]

I personally LOVE this design because it does remind me of my goofy Peri. It's not perfect, but all the doodles look different and are not perfect anyway!

[Bonne Bouche]

Honestly, I was sad you "picked" an entry before the deadline. The wording in this topic suggests that the decision was made even though there was an entire day left. With a good 20 hours to go, I had a suggestion for a revision of one of the top contenders that I PMed the designer. He said that it was a great idea, but that you already told him that your minds were made up. After waiting so long, why close it a day early?

[Adina P]

It wasn't 'closed' (it still isn't) and anyone could easily have attempted a last minute entry to blow us away.... But we wanted to be clear and open with the designers so as not to lead them on and keep asking for more work/tweaks on their behalf when the above design was ahead by a wide margin on every single poll. From trying to get a logo in the past and seeing how design tweaks progress/work...the chances of a design change making a huge impact THIS late in the game was quite slim.

[F, Calla & Luca]

As you know,I love DK and respect you and Clark as the originators immensely. But I do think you did in fact discourage late submitters, if you did not actually close the competition early and that that was unfair. The polls themselves were biased by not having the whole sample of submissions. 99 Designs seems to have had far too many restrictions from the start in terms of time, numbers of designs in a poll, and they are taking 2/5 of the money offered originally. The number of responders to the poll was quite miniscule in fact when you consider that the same people probably voted in all three as I did. We could however only vote amongst the 8 designs selected in each one and if memory serves some designs were the same in more than one poll.

I am truly disappointed that you did not put this process on DK to begin with to see what some of our very talented artists, myself most definitely not included in that group, could come up with. Or even giving us the opportunity to suggest what we might like in a logo before doing this. You could have certainly made it clear what some of the limitations of logo design are since you both are familiar with this process by now. I believe our professional artist members may have been happy to offer you a design for nothing. I know some of them have been exceedingly generous with their help and ideas when asked re: photography. While I realize you cannot please all of the people all of the time, this process has certainly not pleased me.

 

[ClarkP]

[rant]

OK... we have involved DK members in this process every step of the way.  The process was completely fair to all entries.  It was announced on DK even before it was announced on 99designs!  We asked for all DK designers to enter. We have given exhaustive feedback to designers whose concepts were viable.  We held multiple polls for all our members including designs that were suggested by those members.  There was only one image that was in two polls.  Every other image in three polls was different or updated based on feedback of what members wanted.  All polls were entered by enough members to be statistically significant... that and the thought that if someone didn't care enough to enter a poll, perhaps their opinion shouldn't matter quite as much if at all.  We didn't close the contest early.  We just didn't lead any designers on.  There is not a design even in the top 10 that was arrived at in less than 24 hours.  If we get a phenomenal design in the next few hours before the contest closes, we'll use it.  It's not impossible, just so very improbable.  There is absolutely no way to make this process more fair than it was.  That doesn't mean everyone agrees with the outcome.  Oh well.  My vote for president doesn't always win either.  Life 101.

 

Did I miss anything?  "this process has certainly not pleased me."  Well, I'm beginning to join you in displeasure.  And it has nothing to do with the great logo we will end up with.  The one we think it will be or a late breaking phenom.  I'll love that!  :-)

[/rant]

[Chelsea and Bailey]

I agree.. I thought that it was well enough announced on DK, I am on fairly frequently so I see the posts that come up, whereas others that are not on everyday may have not, but there is no way to guarantee that everyone will see the posts. I am one who did not vote, I looked at all the polls, a couple times a day, and could not decide so I left it and figured I would be happy with anything people chose.

 

This really is as fair as fair can get. People will always have input on how they think the design should be and will probably always want something tweaked or changed, I mean there are a lot of members on here! I think if we did not stop now, we will never get anything accomplished, there would be no logo. So good job to those that submitted, and thank-you to those that have to be the main decision makers! It is not an easy job! 

[Adina P]

Thank you and along those lines of noticing posts..  We did also send mass emails to all members to let them KNOW about the current and upcoming polls.  To have made the process 100% democratic we would have had to post polls multiple times a day, as designs came in, every single day and spammed members up the wazoo to remind them to vote.

[ClarkP]

Nobody likes spam up the wazoo... wait, let me Google that... apparently some people DO like spam up the wazoo!  Ewww... that is not right.  Time to turn "SafeSearch" back on.

[Bonnie and Kona]

Bwahahahaha

[Lisa, Daisy & Dexter]

I agree Adina, I didn't check my email until just now - 504 - what the doodle - guess what they were mostly about - that's right THIS!

Sorry everyone who is not quite happy but I believe the process was fun and certainly fair.

I personally did not enter - I can't draw stick figures - however a friend of mine did and she did a good job, Adina, she was tickled pink that you wrote her about her design and thanked her for her efforts. She was so impressed as was I. You have so much on your plate and to take the time to do that is just what I would expect from you.

I haven't read everything yet so I will hold my tongue and find out if there were any changes to this design.

Thanks you two!