Critique...Logos Through the Drafts

The number 20 didn't seem that big when it was my age or when it was the number of miles I'd driven on my 432-mile drive home, but designing 20 logos is a lot harder than I expected. In hours I spent on designing my first drafts I came up with a handful right off the bat; I thought I was home-free -- I still had 14 more to design. I stuck with the color red in my first drafts because I've grown up visualizing black and red as a combination of colors that were bold...strong...unbreakable. And when I think of the women and minorities that the Sports Journalism Institute support, I can only imagine how tough they've got to be to make their careers happen. So here's what I started with:

Round two we were told to narrow the field to five logos. The following were my top five and how they changed from the original drafts to the final five. Note: the ORIGINAL is on the far left of each.


Choice 1: Received 2 votes during the in-class selection.

Choice 2: Received 5 votes during the in-class selection.

Choice 3: Received 9 votes during the in-class selection.

Choice 4: Received 4 votes during the in-class selection. As you can see, I opted for a brand new logo -- I now think they look like baby rattles. 

Choice 5: Received 3 votes during the in-class selection.

And in the final drafts our five selections were brought to two choices with the help of Greg Bowers.

Choice 1: For this logo I wanted to take on the image of designing a seal for the institute, because when I think of an institute I think they must have a seal of some sort -- University of Missouri has one, it's displayed in the Student Center as a remembrance of Brady Commons.

Choice 2: Sports are all about motion -- there's constant movement, even when athletes take a moment to breathe. I designed this logo around that motion and took into effect the way the motion encircles the team; hence, the motion is encircling the name plate. As for color (in both logos), I was told that symbolism was not as powerful as color -- so I chose colors that were vibrantly different, dark with contrast, and lastly a resemblance of skin colors.