Rebrand Idea

i think the flame looks great -- i got the small case b right away.

just a thought -- do you think you can make the white space inside the flame look a bit like a small case d? it would probably be hard to do this and have the flame/b retain it's integrity but it might be worth a sketch just to see.

Leigh Anne.

Yeah, I have been using the flame or 'creative spark' concept for years. Check out 'Sparky' on my site.

What I was trying to do was make the flame also resemble a stylized lower case "b", without completely warping the flame.

I don't think the flame needs to look like b at all, so you can free yourself from that. It does look a little distorted; more like a fat red raindrop than a vibrant flame. :)

The font looks too calm and collected (and ashen!) to go with a flame. Why not something more dynamic as you seem to be? Your icon here on cb is a better example of your style, in my opinion.

Definitely keep the brain workin, this isn't your only good idea I'm sure!

----
Powerpoint is not a design application
My latest web design work

Negative space isn't working for me on the flame but love the flame idea and I like the idea of the lower case 'b' a lot!

Perhaps experiment with raising the left side more and lowering the right. The bottom of the flame seems excessively fat, as if the design were vertically compressed rather than intelligently 'constructed', if that makes any sense at all.

I like it, but it's not jumping out at me. Look forward to more posts.

After thinking, "Wow, cool," my first impression of this is that you design expensive ovens or something.

For the record, I don't see a letter in the flame or its negative space. The negative space inside the flame does, however, look a little like one of those round laboratory vessels with a slanted neck, like the kind you see positioned over bunsen burners in old science-fiction movies. You might want to make it a little less perfectly rounded. That might help you with the b and d thing too.

This is maybe a little more stiff and elegant than you are. Nat's already commented on that. Is there a way of being just a little more daring, without turning off a client base you might be wanting to attract with your new look?

The negative space inside the flame does, however, look a little like one of those round laboratory vessels with a slanted neck, like the kind you see positioned over bunsen burners in old science-fiction movies.

You mean a beaker? :) Though your description is much better, and more descriptive.

----
Powerpoint is not a design application
My latest web design work

I thought beakers were only the straight tubes. If not, then yes, that's what I meant.

Maybe i can exploit the beaker look, kind of a mad scientist designer type thing. I think I'll explore that.

Just to be clear, the "b" was to be derived from the flame itself, not the negative space, although that might be an interesting direction.

I kind of liked the idea of a sort of squat looking flame, but I'll keep tweaking it. This is just the first one I have taken from sketch to comp. I'll have more eventually, as soon I get my work done.

On another note, the ligature on the "tt" wasn't supposed to be there. I had picked that up from a different thought. don't think it adds much here.

Makes me think of those flammable warning signs.

It's not exactly close to what the standard "flammable" sign is - they have a lot more flames on it... but I think it's the negative space in the image that's making me think of the flammable warning.

Doesn't mean I don't like it though - I like the cleanliness of the design, for sure.

Here is a redo.

Better, but think about how your logo will be applied. Because it's so wide, if you have to shrink this down at all it's going to become illegible, and you'll find that will also limit your designs that include it.

Try to sketch some different ideas out and get away from the computer. More will come.

----
Powerpoint is not a design application
My latest web design work

Really good. I think it works well.

I feel myself going back and forth on the bottom point of the mark. Something about it gives a 'heart-like' feel. I could warm up to that though...

I'm glad you replaced the horizontally scaled Helvetica font (I think that was an FPO anyway). However, I'm not sure the current font compliments the shape of the flame as well as it could. Can't offer much advice here...just play around with it.

The horizontal nature of this logo I think is a benefit, at least in web-design. We generally don't want to take up much vertical space on the html page saving that space for content. Vertical or button logos tend to waste valuable, non-scrolling web real-estate, IMHO.

Lastly, perhaps placing the flame mark to the left rather than center? Seems like the flame would never exactly center anyway (the word 'bennett' taking up more room than 'design') and there is no particular reason to put a symbolic pause between these two words. Thats just shooting off the hip...

BTW, does the flame logo work well without gradient? Seems like it would but would be nice to see.

Nice work!