Official Luthiers Forum!

Mike, I guess I am the odd one out here in that I saw "Mahar". (Haven't had my evening single malt yet either).

I kinda like it. I wouldn't use it on a headstock but it would look very cool as a logo glued inside the guitar and visible through the soundhole. Also it would look great on a T-shirt, particularly modeled by one who could accentuate certain.....

Or it would look great embroidered on a guitar case or guitar case cover.

I think that due to the fact that some people liked it and some people didn't, tells you that you're on the right track.

I seriously doubt you're going to come up with a logo that gives you even 90% approval especially when you're asking for people's opinions.

Had you put the logo on a headstock or on a shirt and simply posted a picture of it for people to see and not even asking for their opinion, you probably would have gotten a lot of comments from people saying "cool logo".

As I said before, I think it looks good. You put a lot of thought into it. If you put it on a guitar and I were a customer of yours, I wouldn't hesitate to buy it because of the logo and I would fully accept it as being your logo. Now when you ask me for my opinion of the logo specifically, I automatically go into critique mode and say that I personally would tone it down a bit so to speak and remove the soundhole and the bottom half of the tuners (or remove the tuners alltogether). This is merely the route I think I would go, but that doesn't make it right. That's focusing on one person's opinion and no matter how hard you try, everyone's opinion will be different.

You're trying to come up with a logo that is unique and something that you can call your own. I'd say you've done it and no matter what any of us say (unless of course maybe you got 100% of the responses saying that they absolutely did not like it), I say do what you like. Design the logo to what makes the best sense to you and to what you feel in your heart is the perfect logo for your guitars. If it makes you happy then I'd say that's more than half of the battle. If you build guitars that people have to have, then they're going to learn to love your logo no matter what it is.

_________________
Thanks,
Blain

http://www.ullrichguitar.com

"89.67% of all statistics are made up on the spot."

Hi Mike.
Saw the Mahar right away, but the dots seem to throw it off for me. It's just too busy overall. It might be cool for a website icon or logo, but on the guitar iyself it's too much for a logo in my opinion. It's not "clean" to me.

Hope this makes sense.

Good luck.
Craig L

_________________
www.handcraftinlay.com

All of these opinions are typical reactions to logo concepts. I'm a professional graphic designer, and I think logos are the most interesting and challenging projects that I do. They're
very difficult assignments. Having said that, I'll just offer these observations: If you lose the soundhole in the guitar, the shape will read more like an "M", but less like a guitar. I like the soundhole. If the waist of the guitar half were slightly deepened, it might enhance the readability of the "M" a bit, but you don't want to lose the grace of guitar body. In situations like your label, business card, etc., you can simply reprint "Mahar Guitars" in smaller type below your logo, and that will help people "get" it. You can't do that on your headstock, though, so, yes, inlaying is a definite consideration. Most of your respondents prefer the script fonts. Oddly, I don't. Can't say why for sure--just personal preference, I guess. I like
the tech-looking sans serif font shown third down or third up, in either the obliqued version or the standard version. I think it's a nice visual blend of art and science, tradition and technology, historic and contemporary, etc. You will get different opinions from everyone you solicit. That's the nature of opinions. On the whole, your designer has developed a nice, workable, appealing concept for you--and lots of good variations on the theme, too.