Critique logo for community consultancy

Question

I created a logo for a community consultancy firm I might start. Design goals were:

• Subtly show community interaction, I modeled the dots to be a bit of a tree-structure, network map
• Monochrome, so it's versatile
• Usable as e.g. favicon by leaving out the letters
• Simple, I'm not a design wizard at all :)

Here's what I came up with, please shred it to bits and tell me what works and what doesn't. Specific questions I struggled with:

• What is the best size for the lines between the dots

• I personally like the 5x5 matrix, is this too much?

-Edit- After the given answers, I've tried the following, I personally like the 5x5 matrix best, but please give me your valuable input :)

With medium lines:

With fat lines:

3x3 option:

3x3 with color:

And the 5x5-medium rendered as favicon:

Answer 1

Actually it's not bad. There are some things to fix in my opinion.

• The dots + lines logo it's a bit confusing, especially if you try to use it in a real small version. Keep in mind that thin lines in a big logo will reflect in a "really hard to see lines" in a small one (favicon). You should try to use less dots so to be able to spread them in a bigger area, let's say 9 or 16 dots instead of 25. In this way it should be easier to create thicker lines.

• the monochrome is good, but you could also draw the lines with a bit of color. Like, for example, black circles + red lines or green dots + black lines. In this way everybody should be able to see them immediately and get closer to the meaning of the logo.

Answer 2

In the 5x5, the dots visually blend together and I see it as a 'patterned square,' not connected dots. The lines further blend the dots together. I much prefer the 3x3.

You may also want to try removing some of the dots within the grid.

The contrast on the connecting lines is very low. Try spacing the dots out a bit and making the connections the same color as the dots. You can make the connections 'widen out' into the dot (as in some of the examples I include below).

My immediate thought on seeing the 3x3 was the 37 Signals logo. You can connect the dots in many ways to make it different.

_{(source: qaswa.com)}

The connected dots/blobs idea can be seen in many designs, below are a few for inspiration. Personally, I find the designs with less dots stronger (likely due to my reasoning in my first paragraph).

sample http://boblr.com/files/logo_d-2.jpg

Answer 3

General comments:

• It's hard to say. May not be an easy-to-remember name. Will people be able to remember the URL easily? I'd suggest coming up with some alternative names if possible.
• The mark is nondescript and rather generic. I don't think it adds much to the logo. It's perhaps superfluous.
• The type is overly letter-spaced. Typically, the narrower the characters, the closer you want to typeset the characters.
• Play with some more type options. This one is rather dry.

Answer 4

Just my opinion, since this is a subjective question..... Take it all with a grain of salt.

The "lines" are pointless. They do absolutely nothing to elevate the mark and, in fact, do more to confuse the mark. In order for the lines to be effective, they need to be thinner than the dots and to that end, they have gotten so thin they are either impossible to discern or only serve to make the dots less clear.

My opinion would be to remove the lines entirely. Even in the 3x3 configuration, even using color, the lines are just "noise" and not legible.

The type is horrid. No time has been spent on the type. You appear to be so wrapped up in those (useless) lines that you've failed to see the entire logo. The type is nothing more than a condensed sans serif typeface which was typed and forgotten. There's absolutely nothing unique about the type. It hasn't even been kerned effectively.

My advice would be to scrap it all and start over. Rather than trying to force a bad idea to work, come up with a better idea.