Hey Frank, while house logos range in quality from the poor triangle-over-text to the quality home image, the primary problem is that so many people in the industry use the same imagery. A great house image is still competing with a bunch of other house images.
This is what I mean when I say a logo is not to show people what you do. A tiny magnifying glass over a house is not going to remind me of BGXV5 Home Inspections. The image and the text are completely unrelated. Memorable logos are the ones that connect well to an image or just simply present the company name in a professional manner. Trying to show someone everything that you do with a tiny picture never works and doesn’t create a memorable brand. This is especially true if everyone is using the exact same imagery.
The C that you use in your logo reminds me that your company name is Certified and that is all that your logo needs to do to be successful.
Levi - I have a question about the Nachi designed logos. Most of the ones I see, including a few of the above, have a design that - I can’t quite put my finger on it - seems almost cartoonish. I don’t know if it’s the color palette or what. I don’t know if that makes sense, but the one above with the hound and the one with the ram are examples of what I’m talking about. I don’t know squat about graphic design, so I’m not sure how else to explain it. Does that make sense to you? And if so, how can I explain this better?
Levi, can you make me the perfect home inspector’s logo? I can describe what I want:
I want my 3 initials sort of all connected together (you know what I mean, where part of one letter forms part of the next) with a clip-art graphic of a roof over top. A magnifying glass overlaid on top of that. Above it I want an eagle, sort of a mean-looking eagle. Make it all in bright primary colors please. Then add 4 American flags, one in each of the 4 corners of the logo. Be creative by incorporating 5 or 6 different fonts. Oh, and center everything. Can you make me that?
Nick, I understand what your saying.
Levi, I know you dont like the rooflines,
I dont like them so much either, but I felt that I needed the roofline or something else
indicating that I am a home inspection company. I had a friend design mine for me, and I’m pretty happy with it. If you have a better idea, I would definetly entertain it, as you do great work. Or should I go ahead and sign up for your services. This was done using the barter system.
Daniel: The logos have to have solid lines order to be recognizable when the logo is small since 99% of the time a logo is going to be smaller than an inch and a half wide (extreme detail tends to be confusing at this scale). The logos are also designed as vector graphics rather than pixel graphics. This means that the logos can be scaled without losing any resolution and the color range is limited to a handful of very specific colors. Since the logo has a limited set of colors you cannot reproduce photographic images. Perhaps this is what you are thinking looks cartoonish?
Nick has successfully described a truly terrible logo example. If I remember correctly home inspection is a completely different career than running for an elected office.
Ron: It’s not that I do or don’t like roof-lines, it is that a roof-line is an over-used image in the industry. It’s not that every logo with a house or a roof is a bad logo, it’s that there are too many of them. While your logo does employ the roofline graphic, it does use a clear, legible font and would be easy to reproduce on print materials since it only employs one or two colors (white for the background circle). It’s much, much better than most of what I see in the industry. Some color might help to make it look more specific to just your company. We can always help. Just place an order for print materials and we will assist with design.
Robert: I’ve actually created a revolutionary war figure for a guy’s company that was called patriot (attached). The guy ended up going with a house over text instead. Your patriot logo is another good example of the thick line that allows for graphics to be visible when small, for some reason it looks kind of cartoony.
This is my business logo. very boring and simple. I played with some complex designs and didnt like the way they looked when very small.
notice the 3 different fonts, Nick? lol
mauger
(Mike Auger, CMI - RI 43685, RMC-142, RMB-096)
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nice logo, I’m mulling over a slight brand change…take my name off the company, so it’ll eventually be more sellable when I retire (decades from now) that was a name I was considering using…
