Some friends and I are starting a non-profit tutoring service in Detroit to help some of the higher achieving students in the DPS system get a little extra college prep for free, or for a very low cost.
It's called Excellence for Detroit. Sadly, I'm probably going to have to take a dramatically reduced role in the group when I move out of Michigan in a couple months, but I'm trying to help in every way I can before that happens. We're working with E4D as shorthand for the group, and I think some sort of stylized E4D logo is what we're expecting, though I'm open to anything. Maybe something with the Detroit Skyline in it? Or some sort of symbols that involve learning and college? I'm not much of an artist, so I don't really know.
If anyone out there can come up with something in the next week, I'd be most appreciative. Right now we have a placeholder logo up on the website, but we'd like something a little nicer, fancier, more professional for when we order business cards and letterhead for the correspondence that we hope will be picking up soon, as well as for the website logo.
It doesn't have to be dramatically detailed or complicated, but I'd appreciate anything that the artists of Hatrack can come up with.
posted
To be clear, are you looking to find someone to hire, or are you looking for someone who wants to do pro bono?
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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posted
Be careful. You are starting this out like a textbook bad client.
You provide very little creative direction, and you have a deadline of one week, but you want something that looks professional, captures the essence of your organization, and is ready not only for your website but for letterhead and business cards. That's a tall order.
If you do get someone to help, don't be too picky and difficult with what they produce. In my experience, pro bono clients are often the most demanding with the final product. Don't be that client. Keep in mind that they are being extremely nice. Posts: 5957 | Registered: Oct 2001
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posted
kat - Pro bono. Our budget at the moment barely pays for the website and some other small costs. We're in the middle of filing for non-profit status, after which I suppose you'd be able to write off the time spent on coming up with something as a donation and tax deduction, I suppose.
advice - My bad, I fixed the link. And other than the couple ideas I tossed out, we really don't have anything specific in mind yet. None of us are very artistically minded, so we're fairly open to creative ideas. If we don't like it, we might not use it, but we won't throw a hissy fit about it.
I should add that if after a week you'd still like to make something, if it's better than what we have, we might go for it, but I couldn't promise anything. I know it's an annoying deadline, but I'm not expecting a miracle. Perhaps just an hour or two of your time here and there, or less, I really don't know how long it takes to jot something down. Also consider just pencil drawing something and scanning it. It doesn't necessarily have to be a beautiful work of art, but something we could use as a basis or idea for a final product. Either way, if you get picked, I'm sure we could put your name (whoever creates it), somewhere on the webpage as a little free advertising, if you'd like.
Stone - Cool! Thanks. I'm going to forward it to the others in the group.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
Three stacked books, with each one a bit further to the right, immediately left of an apple sliced in half (the left wedge lying on its side, the right one vertical) looks a fair bit like a stylized E4D.
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quote:Perhaps just an hour or two of your time here and there, or less, I really don't know how long it takes to jot something down.
You will not get something professional with this amount of time, in less than a week, without paying for it.
The freelance trifecta is the following: fast, good, and cheap. Pick two. Since you've already picked cheap (free) and fast, if I were you, I'd set the expectations really low for the quality.
In other word, I might fiddle with it, but not at the beginning of Memorial Day weekend and not without enough time to fiddle with it to my own satisfaction. The advertising isn't worth anything unless I am willing to list it in a portfolio. If it was for pay I'd draw my freelance artist's attention to this thread, but his income is from this work and asking it for free also means an enormous lead time, because it would be a spare time thing.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: Three stacked books, with each one a bit further to the right, immediately left of an apple sliced in half (the left wedge lying on its side, the right one vertical) looks a fair bit like a stylized E4D.
I first read it as "DEAD"
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Perhaps just an hour or two of your time here and there, or less, I really don't know how long it takes to jot something down.
You will not get something professional with this amount of time, in less than a week, without paying for it.
The freelance trifecta is the following: fast, good, and cheap. Pick two. Since you've already picked cheap (free) and fast, if I were you, I'd set the expectations really low for the quality.
In other word, I might fiddle with it, but not at the beginning of Memorial Day weekend and not without enough time to fiddle with it to my own satisfaction. The advertising isn't worth anything unless I am willing to list it in a portfolio. If it was for pay I'd draw my freelance artist's attention to this thread, but his income is from this work and asking it for free also means an enormous lead time, because it would be a spare time thing.
That's fair.
If you look at the website, you'll see the placeholder logo we have at the moment. If no one in the organization can come up with something better, we'll probably just stick with that for the near future, but we're finalizing this one in the next week or so, so we can begin to work on other things. I'm betting if we had something newer and better before we start the pilot program, which is still months away, we'd be willing to change it. So I guess that week deadline is somewhat soft. It's either a week, or a few months, so in that vein, take all the time you need.
Perhaps I spoke too soon, or simply misspoke, when I said we wanted something more fancier and more professional (though certainly, that'd be nice). I personally would like something a little more memorable and specific than what we currently have, but even if it's just a rough sketch that we can work from, and not a totally finished product, I think we'd be happy with that. We just need some ideas.
And both to kat and afr, thanks. You guys are teaching me pretty quickly that I need to be a little more specific and more thoughtful when I ask for things so these sort of complications don't arise.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
Reading my post again, I realize I sounded meaner and more snobbish than I meant to. I have no problem with your request and from your presence on Hatrack, I wouldn't expect you to be hard to work with as a client. But I have worked with so many otherwise pleasant people who have unrealistic expectations simply from having little experience commissioning this kind of work.
I did sketch out a few thoughts in my notebook yesterday but I don't have time to try to create anything in Illustrator. My thoughts included:
• using a graduation cap (mortarboard?) in the design • using a tassle by itself • using a rolled-up diploma tied with ribbon • Putting the name "Excellence for Detroit" into what looks like a framed college diploma
Nothing earth-shattering there, and I'm not deft enough with Illustrator to whip out any ideas in 5 minutes.
Remember, for a logo you want both a vector version (EPS, etc.) for print and a raster version (JPG, PNG, etc.) for your website. If all you get is the raster version, chances are it will look terrible when printed on letterhead or envelopes. The logo should be simple enough to easily convert to a b&w version but look great in color for the web. Keep in mind I am a copywriter --and while I do work closely with designers, if someone knows more about this and wants to speak up and contradict me, I won't be offended.
Posts: 5957 | Registered: Oct 2001
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Just wanted to let you know that we had a meeting yesterday, and everyone liked what you came up with. We're going to modify it a little. We're going to keep the skyline, but change it to an outline, like the opening credits for Frasier, and we're going to keep the book E, probably, but perhaps lose the 4D (which was a surprise to me, but they really liked the book). A couple people are fiddling with it a little but, but I wanted to thank you again for coming up with a good design.
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