And Just Like That, A New Logo Rises

Well, damn.

Not 24 hours after we released what we thought was our new and final logo, we saw something on Facebook that completely, unequivocally, changed the game. After we released the logo, a friend caught what I had written about liking what we had, but not getting exactly what we wanted. He offered the services of his "brother," and said he could create something for us that, if we liked it, would be ours free and clear. I rejected the offer at first, happy enough with what we'd just dropped (and not wanting to go through the process again with another designer - one I feared wouldn't do any better), but my friend gently pushed, so I said, "what the hell" and even gave a bit of direction - a "let's see if he can at least do this" piece of input. My friend said we'd have something the next day, to which I scoffed. Surely it wouldn't be good, I thought, not with such a rushed job.

Let me take this moment to say I don't mind being proven wrong if it's for the greater good.

I check Facebook the next morning, and see I have a friend request from "Hiram Lewis." "Okay, this is the guy Jai was talking about," I tell myself. I go to check out his page (as I always do before I add someone - I suspect everyone does this) and lo and behold - right there at the top of his timeline - this:

 "Hey, that says..."

Then it hit me. This was his take on our logo! I had another notification, telling me I was tagged in a post - this one from Jai. "What do you think, Kevin?"

What do I think? I think it's amazing! I think it's awesome! I think... 

I think I have a big decision to make. Big. Huge. I called Shaundra , my girlfriend/sales and marketing manager/dutiful sounding board in and told her I wanted to show her something. Then I sprang it on her. She was flabbergasted. I told her that now I had a big choice to make, and she said, "There is no choice. That's your new logo."

Not wanting to jump to conclusions, I did what I always do - stepped away and took some time to think about it and gibe the image a chance to fade in my mind before I looked at it again to see if that initial punch was still there. I also wanted to see what our followers thought - many of whom had weighed in the night before when I released the "new" logo. So I posted Hiram's design and simply asked which one they liked better.

It was a landslide. Even those who had praised the previous design said Hiram's was the better of the two. And not only was it an amazing job, not only was it the something different I set out for in the first place - he actually gave me what I wanted - the cougar facing dead ahead. And looking damn good doing it. Something I thought was simple, yet no other designer seemed to be able to do. And yet here it was - done in, I was told, 20 minutes. For free.

And so, just like that, the decision was made, and for the second time in 24 hours, I was proclaiming a new logo for Cougar's Marque Entertainment. I've spoken with Hiram since, and there's a couple of tweaks being made, but we're extremely excited about moving ahead with his design as the visual brand for our company. I already know how I want to animate it for the big screen (another friend gave us a killer idea for the "E" in "Marque"); I can't wait to see it for the first time.

Thank you, Hiram Lewis. This logo most certainly lives up to our company's motto. It is, indeed, "The Marque of Excellence."