Given your audience and the aspiration behind this, I think that a conceptually stimulating solution is mandatory. You're not necessarily far off.. I just expect to get an 'a-ha' moment given the description.

I agree with epsilicon that it'd be nice to see both C & U in the mark, and so I urge you to keep thinking about the mark and try to embed it with meaning; the typography selection can flow from there..

Outside of all this, I prefer the weight / font seen in 2R & 5R for the record.

Good luck!

The logomark needs to be strong; it's still too nondescript for a good conceptualized company/agency.

No 4 sexual? I can only see double boiling..

nagfa

Hello again. been busy, but i'd like to get some feedback on the mark. what do you read? And does it work? Is this closer to the "ah-ha" moment? =)

damn. i feared something like that. do you think it's more apparent in the top one?

okay, back to the drawing board. thanks. i'll be back. =|

It feels a bit generic to me, slightly predictable or unimaginative. I don't know if something as simple as maybe a word mark with the I in unified being a number 1 to give the "unified" and collective feel would be more appropriate?

I'd make the U in U symbol more geometric and rotate it 45 degrees clockwise which would give it some life and it would work for both U as well as C.

here are some earlier sketches I did. some are tilted in the 45 degree angel. what do you think about the bottom sketch?

so the fact the graphics are coming together or grouping is not an idea of unified? hmmm. okay. i'll keep that in mind. thanks jakes.

another sketch. thoughts?

okay. i like that too. i'll try that out. thanks penn. designing your own logo is torture. =)

Hm... what's the smallest this will appear? I'm thinking the fi ligature may get lost at small sizes, and together appear as a single capital A. I do think having the entire crossbar of the f is better for clarity.

Perhaps if you returned to the design before the ligature, and simply terminate the top of the f before it curves downward? If you really want a ligature there, you could also lift the ascenders one "block" up and link the crossbar of the f to the top of the i. But I think an f that doesn't curve down is much nicer.

i'll update later today. i like this approach so far. thanks.

Now it looks like an »h« to me.

The top line is definitely better — keeping the height of the 'i' the same as the other. I think the context of the ligature will quash all misinterpretations of it as an 'h'. Alone it might get confused, but where it is, I think it will be fine though you might extend the height of the stem of the 'f' above the crossbar.

You might also play around with other connections between the 'fi' ligature, more along the lines of your first go (just not descending so far with the top arm of the 'f').

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penn

agree. i too like the top one. i'll make some adjustments. thanks. stay tuned. =)

The top definitely wins for me. Much more unique and unified than the bottom. It's a great solution.

You might open the counter of the 'e' more by thinning the horizontals a touch.

--
penn

Thirded.

Here's a gif that'll illustrate better than I could explain.

nice. thanks penn. i figured it was something like. i too love the animation. =)

i tried a similar execution like that in my earlier sketches (not posted here). i was having issues incorporating the "ied" combination, but like the "UNI" section of it. one way i got around it was flipping the 'e' so the 'i' and 'd' could connect more fluidly. i'll keep it in mind. thanks luca, much appreciated.

yep that's what I meant. Feels a bit like bricks to me right now. On the 'U' for example the bottom corners look fine but the top ones feels a bit too hard. I get a Soviet Union in the second world war feeling from the whole thing.

thoughts?

So, maybe to expected of a solution for #2? Unifying another set of letters is to much?

- Straight vs Curved inner corners is applied to U-N-E-D. 'D' sure looks smaller, hmmm, i'll take at that It maybe an oversight on my end.

- Straight no-curved are applied to inner D and FI ligature. Felt this would be much if I rounded every intersection. Staight seem to fit best.

- Heavy bends, i'll look at the again. I don't think I want to round this out more, I kinda like the block feel I get from it. I do however feel it does look heavier in this area.

thanks apankrat.

in addition to the points made above (top one goer!) I really think it needs to be rounded off some, not necessarily heaps, just some.