Rockhill Trolley Museum

beautiful.

I love them as they are, but have you played with distressing them slightly yet? Just to give them more of a sense of age. I would be subtle with that though.. It might ground them a little, make them more 'vintage'. It could work. Maybe not.

Love Them.

Really like the art deco piece, but you need to commit and go full deco!

Your realistic train is killing the rest of the deco vibe. Change it to a stylized deco trolley, maybe a low perspective view of it coming right at you all grill and lights.

Also, I feel like the space that "Rockhill" is occupying needs to be a bit more filled, or maybe the text needs to stand out more... not sure, but there's a sense of too much room in that area that's needling me.

Otherwise, cool direction for the client to go. You seem to understand the source material well, keep going and have fun with it!

What is the purpose? That's the most important question because this could be a logo, a brochure, an admission ticket... what? It makes a difference.

The top one looks like clip art of a regular train. The bottom one has potential, although it's mighty empty at the top - why not put "Trolley museum" up there too? Not sure if the diagonal lines are adding anything either. But it's an interesting start.

Thanks for the great feedback so far guys! Purpose is printed materials and possible a sign.

Also, I forgot to mention this is for a museum in PA (keystone state). I was searching a lot of art deco reference materials and found a few instances where the keystone shape was used. The shape was also used a lot by the railroad organizations in PA (due to the size and importance of the PRR which also used the shape). So I decided to keep the open space around "rockhill" to create a keystone shape on the art deco idea.

I also think I'll try that front facing trolley in the full art deco style. Any suggestions on where to begin with that? I haven't found many examples of vehicles in done in this style so right now I feel like it might be a shot in the dark.

The train looks a little clip-arty as mentioned, but man that bottom right one is rubbing me the right way. I love it.

J - Look at some old school clip art - the stuff drawn by real artists. Not this new stylized crap you get for free when you sign up for AOL.

Sam - either way, you need to do something with that top area. Beef up Rockhill or put a tagline there or something. The keystone will still stand out. It's very bottom-heavy the way it is now.

Finally got the new stuff out to the client, they like where its going but say it isn't quite what they want yet. Design by committee had at the top three - too complex, not quite heavy enough on the lines of the trolley and a long discussion about how best to implement the "TROLLEY MUSEUM" line on the logo. Personally, I still think the logo is missing some kind of "wow" factor/ability to stand out. Just can't put my finger on what it needs... (designers block is a cruel mistress)

The lower two art deco logos were flatly rejected (no accounting for taste, eh? - just kidding). They museum board felt these just didn't represent the museum but found the art deco style very interesting and hoped that I could work up another with more emphasis on general/printed art deco styling and less upon architecture. Admittedly I did get pretty carried away looking at architecture while processing that one.

So it's a revision for the top and back to the drawing board for the bottom/art deco one. If anyone has suggestions of some non-architecture art deco images or motifs to look at as reference - I'd love to hear from you.

Whoa. Wait... THESE ARE LOGOS?!?

Simplify, simplify, simplify!!! Think of a design that will still look good reduced onto a business card, or embroidered on a shirt or hat.

Concept-wise I think you're on the right track. But what you've shown us here is too busy and complicated; these are illustrations, not logos.

Sorry, I'm bad at explanations,

The idea behind these was for larger items (think signage/poster/ad etc). My idea was then to simplify whatever idea I went with down to use as a logo for them (for an identity package most likely). Although I think I'm over-complicating everything right now either way. I think I'm going to boil down the top idea into a strictly logo design and see if its working better in that format - still puzzling over the final type placement for "trolley museum" though.

As for the art deco idea, still completely clueless as to that. But I'm going to approach that one from the standpoint of a logo this time as well.

Thanks again for the feedback everyone, I'll make a new post in a day or two with some revisions, new ideas.