Day 18: Back To The Drawing Board

Ok. I received an e-mail from the folks over at Roller Derby Manchester (the web designer actually). It wasn’t what I was hoping for, but it was kind, constructive, and helpful. Here is the email:

Bobby,

I can't speak for the team officially, but wanted to shoot an email your way after briefly discussing your design with a couple of the appropriate team members. I'm only responsible for the website, so understand that I'm going to be completely biased toward that in my feedback.

I like the design overall. It's clean and identifiable, and thankfully doesn't include pinup girls or wings or flash tattoo styled designs. My suggestion would be simplifying it ruthlessly, though. I've included a few examples of the simple, iconic type of design that would work best (again, at least for the website). I know the management committee is planning to make pins and stickers and such, and minimalistic designs tend to work best for those as well.

I love the idea of using a crown for the 'queen city' but that may cause confusion, since only people from NH will be familiar with the city's nickname. Also, Buffalo NY has a team called the "Queen City Rollers" so to further avoid confusion I would suggest avoiding using that nickname.

I'm also a big fan of the idea of using a skate wheel, even if it is on the cliché side of things. It represents derby as a sport rather than a spectacle, and gives a perfect opportunity to add text into the logo. However, the "men, women, youth" text on your current design would quickly become illegible if scaled down.

I've tried using ornate designs (similar to yours) for branding/marketing in the past, but they tend to be very limited in what they can be used for. As much as I like your design, I don't think it will be usable in its current form. I hope this feedback is well received and ends up being helpful, and I highly encourage you to send another submission, if you have time to create one (or even more, perhaps?).

These are the examples they sent:

I wanted to show you the email because in the past that would have crushed me. I would have taken this as a direct insult not matter how kind the email. That’s the kind of thing that discouraged me from continuing my pursuit of a Graphic Design degree. However, as I mentioned before, I am approaching these things differently this time. It’s not about being a success; it’s about not giving up. It’s about perusing my art as a hobby regardless of the outcome. I still have a couple weeks before the design contest deadline ends, and per their suggestion, I will definitely keep trying.