First Logo Project Ever for the Rest of my Life.

So Ive been given my first ever project to do with logos, I feel like this is the beginning of the rest of my life in graphic design! Our brief was basically to come up with our own personal Design Ethos which related directly to our work, and then come up with a logo which could represent this ethos. Our first task was to come up with 100 different logo designs and from that we were to refine our ideas down until we had only one left. But as always, it didn't work that way for me. Here were my the 100(ish) logos.

Only problem was Paul and Nigel didn't think any of these logos stood out as a good starting point for the rest of my project. A minor spanner in the works but we cool we cool. They told me to focus on the idea of Learning from Failure, as its an ideal that I really believe in in my work, having been told many times by my teachers at GCSE, A-Level and even Art Foundation that I wouldn't do as well as I eventually ended up doing. I think thats just how i learn, I have a kind of FUCK YOU mentality, and I always feel very smug when i prove them wrong.
So after brainstorming I came up with the concept of using a Dodo to embody my ethos - I wanted to convey the idea of ADAPTING and compromising. Dodos became extinct and therefore failed as a species because they didn't have the necessary qualities to enable them to keep up with nature. In the Design world you need to adapt to survive.

"If you don't keep up you'll get left behind."

The design below was one of my favourites, I really liked the similarity between the colouring and shading of the dodos and the intricate detail on the typeface. The font is actually the one I used for my header, I loved it that much. Although I like this as an image, my Nigel pointed out a valid point that fonts like this only work on a larger scale, for shop fronts or newspapers. Logos need to be flexible so that they can be used on a small and large scale, from ads to as letterheads. 

With the help of Nigel I finally settled on this design, simple but with a clear message, works on both a small and a large scale. Voila! Hopefully whenever the crit eventually happens (it got cancelled on Friday due to Nigels house being burgled - lame) it'll get some good feedback. Fun project though and a great introduction to logo design.