Critique: Turning graphic logo into text logo

Question

I am looking at redesigning the logo, giving it a more modern feel, easier on the eye.

'Bashkohem' means to join, meet, link up together. The website is a social network for ethnic Albanians.

Current used Logo (1): Kosovo map (white) with Albania map (red).

"The Albanian flag is depicted by an eagle with two heads on a red cloth. The red color of the material represents bravery, courage, and strength. The eagles represent or symbolize ruling on the Imperial family, the heads represent the two leading factors in their state, which is the government and church."

Logo 1: is too big, height wise.

Logo 2: Simple, but doesn't stand out.

Logo 3: Not sure

I was looking at some fantastic Text Logos. They stand out.

My Question: Can any creative mind see a way in which I can turn the logo into a clever text style logo with minimal graphics?

Answer 1

I can't give you the answer, but I can explain you the way I work and maybe it'd help you.

First, write down all the first ideas that come to your mind... and do not use them, your logo has to have a real idea, a real meaning, not just a quick idea that everyone can think about.

Then figure out what's the most important part of your logo, obviously ".com" is not as important as the name, so you can make it a lot smaller, below or above the type.

For the colors, I would recommend not to use pure black and pure red. These are kind of basic colors, you can still have black & red but in a different way like this:

For the type, keep in mind that you can't use thin weight on smaller text (.com), or too thin text. Your logo must work in big and small. If your text is too thin, it wouldn't work in small sizes.

Then for your icon, try to think about something related to "join/meet". Usually I try to find a lot of synonyms in order to go away from the 1st word but still have the same meaning. Once you'll find a cool word, you can work across it.

Don't put too many details in your icon, it has to work in small sizes.

Example: join -> meet -> link -> connect -> interact -> people -> communication -> conversation...

Then you can work across some words like "connect", "conversation"...

Hope it'd help!

Answer 2

This is a cool problem. It's hard to explain what I'm imagining and playing with in my head but I'll just toss you my mind dump to stir the creativity pot.

The K form to me looks like it could be manipulated to resemble 1/2 Albanian eagle. Think wings. I'd play with a char/graphic hybrid with subtle manipulation. The fact that K is next to O is also interesting to me. Can the O be manipulated to represent a united people, full-circle, linked concept? I'd probably take some liberty with that K. Like, flip it so it's backward and the center line nudges up to the O. Joined to half the O the two char forms might become one. K representing Alb. and O representing somehow, the peeps. Keeping the color binary will also help explain so that's good.

KO is also kind of close to the centerline of the bashkohem word... might be able to create some balance if you go with that char/img/iconish thing in the center. Thought I don't know that kerning alone could balance that out. With the flipped K you'll have more whitespace on both sides of the char/icon thing though... Hm.

MEHOKHSAB ... I bet if you resize the .com just big enough you can give the whole thing visual balance (weight more toward the hem.com) and achieve the iconish thing to balance center... The H H that surrounds the OK KO center creates a nice boundary.

Those are some thoughts. Not definitive. You'd have to play around with it but I think it's interesting. Hope this helps!

Answer 3

To answer your question, you could try simplifying the wings and tail of the eagle. This may interfere with eagle interpretation. Don't feel compelled to place the graphics inside the text. It may be clearer to keep them separate and helps with simplification.

How about two people side by side, spreading their "wings", just like the two headed eagle. Representing the togetherness that makes Albania.

I quite like the third one. Although I think directly using the two headed eagle from the flag could make it harder to trademark the logo. (not sure if that's even a big problem)