New Business needs help with Logo

[Vince Williams]

Hey everyone, hope everyone has a great and safe 4th.
What I am asking for assistance with is an logo for my enraving business. I am not the graphic design person I wish I was!! The name of my shop is
J&M Laser Engraving, this comes from my 2 youngest sons names, we have a 19 year old he tells us if we do not use his inital that is fine, he's in the Air Force in Iraq. If anyone could or be willing to help I would be very thankful.

Vince Williams

[Stanley Waldrup]

Hello Vince, I am in the same boat. I have been trying to come up with something for the Laser it Up name my self. I was thinking of getting one of the Logo programs and playing with it. Just learning CorelDraw X3 and Hoping something Cathes my Eye..

[Mike Null]

X3 is one of the finest drawing programs there is and one that designers use everyday to develop logos.

If you will draw something up in pen or pencil and post it I'm sure you'll find plenty of help in refining it.

I would also suggest that the name of your business include the word engraving.

Yeah, I know, mine doesn't, but I had the big idea that somebody with a pocket full of money would buy my company name. Never happened.

[Dave Jones]

There's a lot of things to consider when making a logo. It can be a simple one made from block letters without any real graphics (ie: a large "J&M" over smaller words "Laser Engraving"). Or it could be along those same lines with a graphic shape behind it or around it. Or it could be primarily graphic with the name laced into the graphics. Or there could be a separate graphic from the name and that graphic could be scaled large or small relative to the name itself depending on where you use it, or..... many more styles.

Perhaps a good place to start is to look at other logos on the web, not just for this type of business, and think about the basic style of logo you want to start from.

[Mike Null]

Just to add to what Dave says, When I'm designing logos the first thing I take into consideration is how it will look in black and white. Even though you will certainly want color (s) in your logo, you'll need to convert it to black and white for various things such as invoices, newspaper/magazine ads or you just want to laser engraving your logo on some of your products black and white is important.

The other considerations include: how it will look on business cards, signs, invoices, ads, labels, etc.

In the real world our logos aren't nearly as important as our business name. That's what you really want your customers to remember.

[Michael Kowalczyk]

I agree also but would add one more thing. I was told to make sure your business name tells them what you do but do not limit yourself either. the TOS does not allow m to give my example so I will give you a pseudo one and what to watch out for. Do not give it a name of a town unless you plan on never moving ie... "Podunk town laser engraving"

What if you offer more than laser engraving? Look through the yellow pages and see which ones stand out and tell you what they do.
Maybe something like "PT Engraving and Laser services".
Well you get the idea.

The name of one of our business' was conceived that way and my 5 year old daughter at the time helped. She is sixteen now and on a mission trip in Auckland, New Zealand and heading over to Sydney, Australia in a few days. She would always repeat this one word when she was at the shop and even to this day when people call us they use it to. Not just because it is in our business name but because that is what they are calling for and need.
Hope this may have planted a seed or shed light and supplied some water on something you already have,(95)

[Dave Jones]

I think people are maybe treading a little too lightly after the recent links to a web site were removed. I seriously doubt that the creators of the Creek will be upset if you mention the name of your company in a discussion of how to name a new company.

Linking to a commercial site that you might benefit from is against the TOS, and so is blatant self promotion. But that doesn't mean that you can't talk about how you came up with the name of your business when others are trying to figure out how to do the same thing.

[art baylor]

Micheal:
I agree with Dave, 'fess up! What is your company name?
Art

[Craig Hogarth]

We went to instalogo.com to design ours. It's do it yourself and you only pay once you design one you like. Once paid for, it's available for download in several formats.

Here's the one we ended up with.

[RickT Harding]

I've had to come up with some graphics stuff and I've found the sitepoint.com marketplace the way to do it. You basically post what you're looking for and a prize $$. Then different people come in and compete with their ideas. End of the day (well sometimes a week) you pick a winner and they send you the graphics files.

You just have to be really specific in terms of types of files you want, color scheme's etc.

http://www.sitepoint.com/contests/

That's how I got my logo


Here's a link to the content I held. It's long and there are some truly bad designs in there, but you'll see how it goes.
http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/showthread.php?t=409081

[Tom Radachi]

I'm not a laser engraver, but use my Epilog Summit to compliment my business which is creating primarily pens of various woods and acrylics. I wanted to have the name start with a letter towards the front of the alphabet. "Art" fit that bill and really describes what this is. I added the studio on the end to make it feel a bit more "cozy", as well as to secure the domain name that was available.
Here's a copy of my logo. I've also incorporated it into my business cards that I make on my laser.

[James Mooney]

Hi Vince, Like you - I'm new to the laser business, in fact I'm only at the final stages of researching it as a business and haven't committed yet to buying a machine . Unlike you - I have spent the last 20 years in the graphic design business! For what its worth, here's my advice;

Logos and business identities are all about talking to your customer in an appropriate manner. Ideally before you make any decisions about names and logos you need to decide on who your customers are. This can be really top level stuff (not deeply scientific!) for example are they local busineses or local children. Sometimes the nature of the product holds the clue ie is it a craft product aimed at local tourism or security marking for a hospital. I know these examples are possibly a bit extreme but they illustrate the point (I hope!)

The name you've chosen is a fine honest name - the "Does exactly what it says on the tin" approach. It's not sexy but depending on what market (type of customer) you are looking for it may be absolutely perfect, however if your customers are local children looking to get their iPods etc engraved or "pimped" it may not be so good!

In essence it is as much about how you say it as what you say. Once it is appropriate for your target customer it will work fine, everything else after that is purely subjective and your personal taste is probably better than mine! Hope I haven't confused you further.
Best of luck with the business!

[Mike Null]

I like James' advice. It makes good sense.

Tom, your logo is great and I think makes use of James' point as well.

If you were asked to describe the following logos could you do it?

Porter Cable
Jet
Powermatic
Grizzly
Delta
DeWalt
Makita
Epilog
Universal
Laserpro
Trotec

My bet is that you can't get half of them exactly right yet these are all brands those of us on SMC should be familiar with. We know the names, but the logos--now that's another matter.

My point is--be happy with your logo because not too many others are really going to pay a lot of attention.

[Michael Kowalczyk]

Hey Mike and others,
Good point but I disagree partially. The names you listed have one thing in common that most of us may not. A HUGE advertising budget! You recognize the names because they all paid BIG money to get the word out and maintain a consistent advertising budget, that we pay for every time we buy their product, and many of us may not have the 10's of thousands of dollars to advertise in 10 trade magazines on a monthly basis or have a full time webmaster. Most of us wear many hats if not all of them and I think having your business name closely define what you do is an added bonus in the overall marketing plan. Many people have chosen names that define nothing but it puts them in the front, alphabetical at least, or at the beginning of the yellow page listings and similar. An example might be "AAA Distributors". Now if you are looking alphabetically, they will come up on the first page but does it mean anything? Not to me. But if it was the first listing under " Plywood Suppliers" then they probably get a lot of calls just because they are first. Now if they had "AAA Plywood Distributors" it covers 2 areas but then it may limit them to those only looking for plywood and miss out on other products they may sell as well.

In this day of search engines being a driving force for website traffic, your keywords allow you to be found without the business name having much to do with what it's actual product are. But the easier it is to remember the business name and what it offers, IMHO, the more business traffic/leads you will have. The rest is up to you and your sales team.

Look through your yellow pages and see what or who you are up against. Think of all the keywords you may want to use for your business, do searches and see what/who comes up. Will you stay local, regional, national, global? These will also help you in your process and benefit you substantially in the long run.

Food for thought. Does any one know the difference between a "Company" and a "Business"?(310)

Have a Blessed day,

[Mike Null]

Michael

I think you make my point. It is the name not the logo that we recognize and yes they do spend heavily but we still don't know what their logo looks like.

I could have mentioned really big advertisers but chose these because they are more related to SMC.