[tubadog]

We're going pro!!!

We are making the jump to the pro brewery!  You all helped us pick a brewery name already, now help Black River Brewery pick a logo!

https://99designs.com/logo-design/vote-xq4zcu

Thanks!

[majorvices]

As a graphic designer I will advise you to go with either the very first one or the last one. Those are the two that give you a "brand" recognition with the graphic "BR". I liked both of those very much.

[ibru]

Congratulations! I hope it's all that you want it to be.

I like the first one (#29). I can see it on the side of a pint of a freshly drawn ale. The middle two look like baseball logos. The #10 would be second.

[narvin]

Why is the river black?  Is it polluted?  Hopefully that's not where the water comes from 

[phillamb168]

Ah, 99 Designs, nice. I used them for my corporate logo and business cards. Good stuff. I think there's an argue to be made that #2 might be too close to Brooklyn Brewery for comfort. Agreed that the first and last are great.

[richardt]

I like the "classy" look of the first one (#29).  I especially like the circular BR design/water inset in that one.

I also like the last one (#10), especially if your primary intention is to get "brand recognition." 
However, I do NOT like the circular BR logo in this one--it looks like chain link or a screwed up Rolls Royce logo.
If you use this one (#10), I'd replace the circular logo with the one from #29.

[tubadog]

Thanks for all the comments, I appriciate your input!!!  And no, we aren't getting our water from a black river 

Cheers!

[Mark G]

Ah, 99 Designs, nice. I used them for my corporate logo and business cards. Good stuff. I think there's an argue to be made that #2 might be too close to Brooklyn Brewery for comfort. Agreed that the first and last are great.

I thought that second design looked similar to another brewery as soon as I saw it. Good catch on Brooklyn Brewery. I also like the first and last designs the most.

[bluesman]

#29 gets my vote.

All very nice logos but 29 has class plus I like the symmetry.

[ccarlson]

I don't like the black ones. They need some color. I like #21.

[majorvices]

I don't like the black ones. They need some color. I like #21.

a good graphic designer designs his logo to look good n black and white first. Color can always be added. The focus should be on design first. I do agree that a good logo color palette is essential, but logos are very often printed in black and white and if the rely too heavily on color the.y don't often convert well.

[ccarlson]

I don't like the black ones. They need some color. I like #21.

a good graphic designer designs his logo to look good n black and white first. Color can always be added. The focus should be on design first. I do agree that a good logo color palette is essential, but logos are very often printed in black and white and if the rely too heavily on color the.y don't often convert well.

I've seen very few beer bottles with monochrome labels.

http://www.google.com/search?um=1&hl=en&biw=1680&bih=925&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=beer+logos&aq=f&aqi=g3g-m7&aql=&oq= 

[tonyp]

If I had to choose one of those I'd go with #29 with minor changes.

First the good stuff:

1) I LOVE the swash thru the BR in the center, wonderful idea. As a designer, little moments like this that happen when designing make everything worth it. I really hope that swash will be color to make it stand out.

2) The river looks great, I would love to see that in shades of blue in the color version

3) Typefaces are well-chosen, bold, solid slab serifs are excellent for this application.

Here are some thoughts on changes:

1) They need to fix the tracking of the space between Black and River, when the tracking of the type is that wide the space needs to be doubled to be effective as a separator, to me it looks like a single word.

2) The barley stalks are too subdued and at small sizes they will disappear and be totally unrecognizable. They also look weird being so straight when everything else in the design is curved.

3) Since the main type is tracked, the sub-text doesn't fit into the flow of the eye path. The first thing you see is the BR, then...you're left with a choice. Dialing back the tracking on the sub-text (brewery) would cause the flow to change from the BR to Black River to the brewery, which is the story you want to tell.

Think of it like this:

BR, hey what's BR mean? oh Black River! What's Black River? oh its a brewery! pour me a pint!

They could also change it to small caps which would shorten the baseline height with the added benefit of centering the inner grey circle with the text.

Overall I like it and you can tell the designer put some thought and care into the design. A few of the others seem like strawmen to me. This is the one they want you to buy, and for good reason.

Please take my opinions with a grain of salt, each designer has his/her own reasons for making decisions and some aren't readily apparent until you talk to them about it.

I hope this was helpful! Good luck!
Tony

[tonyp]

I don't like the black ones. They need some color. I like #21.

a good graphic designer designs his logo to look good n black and white first. Color can always be added. The focus should be on design first. I do agree that a good logo color palette is essential, but logos are very often printed in black and white and if the rely too heavily on color the.y don't often convert well.

I've seen very few beer bottles with monochrome labels.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&biw=1680&bih=925&q=beer%20bottle%20labels&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi

majorvices is absolutely 100% correct. ALL logos are designed in b/w first because inevitably you will need to use it as a cutout, a splash, a die or in applications where color is cost-prohibitive or just plain unusable.

You may not have seen many beer labels printed in b/w, for good reason, they want their product to stand out on the shelves, but conversely you don't see alot of full color logos printed on giveaway items, glasses, t-shirts, etc. because full-color printing costs a lot of money.

Tony

[ccarlson]

I don't like the black ones. They need some color. I like #21.

a good graphic designer designs his logo to look good n black and white first. Color can always be added. The focus should be on design first. I do agree that a good logo color palette is essential, but logos are very often printed in black and white and if the rely too heavily on color the.y don't often convert well.

I've seen very few beer bottles with monochrome labels.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&biw=1680&bih=925&q=beer%20bottle%20labels&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi

majorvices is absolutely 100% correct. ALL logos are designed in b/w first because inevitably you will need to use it as a cutout, a splash, a die or in applications where color is cost-prohibitive or just plain unusable.

You may not have seen many beer labels printed in b/w, for good reason, they want their product to stand out on the shelves, but conversely you don't see alot of full color logos printed on giveaway items, glasses, t-shirts, etc. because full-color printing costs a lot of money.

Tony

 Not arguing with your cost logic, but I sure see a lot more multi-color t-shirts here.

http://www.google.com/search?um=1&hl=en&biw=1680&bih=925&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=beer+logo+t-shirts&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=