Looking for feedback on my logo.

Hi Jay. You are taking a big leap of faith going into your own business and I wish you the very best. The logo on the left really does not look like an auto detailing logo. It sort of looks like a racing or performance products logo. I like the idea of showing a polisher but that particular 2D drawing does not show much detail. The polisher would look better if it was 3D or an isometric view.

Why are you showing polisher? Most people won't know what that is.

Honestly, I don't care for either. On top of that, they're both really busy.

bofh said:

Why are you showing polisher? Most people won't know what that is.

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I agree with this and really your logo doesn't scream detailing. If you're pushing the eco angle I'd go with something that pushes that. You're pic with the rotary looks like a pierced nipple

Go simpler. The best logos are simple. Unfortunately, most people don’t know what a polisher looks like.


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I really like the first one (the P and R). Perhaps since people are suggesting going simpler .. you could take out the words and just have the PR logo and write Auto Detailing underneath (or something to that affect). And I agree most people dont know whatba buffer looks like so prob not the best to go with a buffer

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I'm not trying to tell you how to run your business, but if you're name confuses customers and is not memorable and doesn't provide a clear indication of who you are and what you can do for people, it's not a good business name. You like it, that's great, that's not enough to make it a good business name.

I hate to give bad feedback but I would rethink the name and get a graphic designer for you. Even if you use fivver and only pay a few bucks, they should be able to come up with something better than what you have now.

I am really bad at making names for projects but I can tell you the name you chose is not gonna be an asset. Wish I could give you advice on making a good name but I really can't.

The themes for names usually resolve around either: you name (Jack's magnificiant shine shop), your city (New York's blinding shine shop), or the concept of luxury or exotic (Excellence auto detailing)

Also, if you are mobile, make it part of your name. I did not and I get about 3 calls per day from people thinking I am a car wash, very annoying and time wasting.

sudsmobile said:

I'm not trying to tell you how to run your business, but if you're name confuses customers and is not memorable and doesn't provide a clear indication of who you are and what you can do for people, it's not a good business name. You like it, that's great, that's not enough to make it a good business name.

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100% entirely untrue.

All it has to be is memorable. Whether that is via marketing, branding or likeness, doesn’t matter.

Apple, Virgin Australia or Harvey Norman tells us nothing about the business and its operation.

Unless you want to spend no money, then one would call themselves AAAAA Best Auto Detailing.

Hmm...this is going to get interesting fast.

I’ll start off by saying congratulations on your goal of getting back into the game (full-time).

Simpler is better. Text logos are not a bad thing. YouTube “Ride & Shine High-End Car Detailing and notice his sign in his shop. It’s clean and more importantly; it works.

Because of the name of the business, stick with a clean typography logo. No icon.

Limit to the name of your business and ‘auto detailing’.

Take out any minor insignificance. Such as ‘eco-conscious’ save those words for the website to sell your point. No need to jam pack it with wording. It makes for something else (negative).

It truly all boils down to branding. Apple in my opinion is an excellence company. But to better illustrate. Let’s think of STARBUCKS. They are really STARBUCKS COFFEE COMPANY.

Through time, they built such a loyal FOLLOWING and now are easily known as STARBUCKS

PERPETUAL RADIANCE: AUTO DETAILING can and may easily be known one day as PERPETUAL RADIANCE.

Again, be known for what you do.

When I rebranded a while back, I went from “Dan Tran’s Mobile Detailing” to what you see now.

My old name actually attracted the idea of a mobile car wash. Had an icon of a car. But rarely did I see AIO jobs and ZERO paint corrections.

THE BUFFING MOOSE today is now locally recognized as a car care specialist as well as for paint corrections. It was a slower start, but again. However, it always came back to marketing and BRANDING yourself. I say do what feels right with the logo over all. But eventually the people (customers) will catch up.

Question:

Do you see a car in my logo? Absolutely not! Does a moose have anything to do with auto detailing. NOT A CHANCE...

I think you get my idea at this point.

My .02 cents.

PS:

Do work so good that other detailers view you as nuts. At that time, the name of your business doesn’t even matter. Word of mouth does happen.


High-End Car Detailing at Your Residence * Portsmouth, NH

sudsmobile said:

I'm not trying to tell you how to run your business, but if you're name confuses customers and is not memorable and doesn't provide a clear indication of who you are and what you can do for people, it's not a good business name. You like it, that's great, that's not enough to make it a good business name.

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I was going to reply with my two cents on the logos but it looks like most agree they aren't that good. On the other hand....SUDS, your logo is pretty great. I would highly recommend farming out logo design to the OP. If money is a factor, sites like brand mark dot com are really helpful! Good luck.

WristyManchego said:

100% entirely untrue.

All it has to be is memorable. Whether that is via marketing, branding or likeness, doesn’t matter.

Apple, Virgin Australia or Harvey Norman tells us nothing about the business and its operation.

Unless you want to spend no money, then one would call themselves AAAAA Best Auto Detailing.

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This is the reason that businesses fail. LOL Seriously, if the OP has Apple money to help with his branding, by all means name the company Lemon Drop and then spend $100 million to make sure everybody knows that Lemon Drop is an auto detailing company. Otherwise, follow my advice. Or follow the terrible advice above and see which one works better.

sudsmobile said:

This is the reason that businesses fail. LOL Seriously, if the OP has Apple money to help with his branding, by all means name the company Lemon Drop and then spend $100 million to make sure everybody knows that Lemon Drop is an auto detailing company. Otherwise, follow my advice. Or follow the terrible advice above and see which one works better.

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Your advice is misguided and misinformed.

Business names don’t make a brand. People don’t buy in to what you do, they buy in to why you do it. And the only way to do that is by telling them via direct contact and marketing.

Then again, it depends on how successful you want to be. If you’re simply about “washing cars” then Sudsmobile is a suitably obvious business name.

sudsmobile said:

if you're name confuses customers and is not memorable and doesn't provide a clear indication of who you are and what you can do for people, it's not a good business name.

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The only accurate part about this comment was the word “memorable”.

Old mate Tran himself mentioned above that his rebrand was necessary to target the audience he required and has barely a significant relevance to what he does but instead, sells a story of why he does it.

Source: work in branding.

WristyManchego said:

100% entirely untrue.

All it has to be is memorable. Whether that is via marketing, branding or likeness, doesn’t matter.

Apple, Virgin Australia or Harvey Norman tells us nothing about the business and its operation.

Unless you want to spend no money, then one would call themselves AAAAA Best Auto Detailing.

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Yes but large brands like that spend fortunes to establish their name and make sure people know who they are and what they do. For a small business, that is a very bad idea... you would rather spend your advertizing budget on selling services than trying to establish your name.

Calendyr said:

Yes but large brands like that spend fortunes to establish their name and make sure people know who they are and what they do. For a small business, that is a very bad idea... you would rather spend your advertizing budget on selling services than trying to establish your name.

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It’s got nothing to do with size.

To give perfectly accurate advice we’d need to dig deeper into the business and ask questions regarding outlook, market position, business plan, target market, competition, differentiators, budget and build a suitable strategy around it.

But this is a detailing forum, and no one has asked those questions or cares to, so the only advice worth a cent is that as long as a business name is memorable, it has maximum potential to do well if it is backed by the service expectation of its target market (high/low fast/slow).

This is a sore subject it seems, lol.

Wristy, I agree that a business name should be memorable. "Dan Tran" is a good example (at least in my opinion).

But, and here is my question.... How do you keep it memorable without driving it down the consumers' throats with regularity?

Truly interested on your take, as you always make excellent points.

PaulMys said:

This is a sore subject it seems, lol.

Wristy, I agree that a business name should be memorable. "Dan Tran" is a good example (at least in my opinion).

But, and here is my question.... How do you keep it memorable without driving it down the consumers' throats with regularity?

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You don't. He's wrong. The reason I believe that Dan Tran has been successful has more to do with the size of his town and the lack of competition. When you're the only game in town, it's pretty easy for people to remember your name. I live in a suburb that is relatively newly large, probably 350,000 people in a 20 mile radius. 20 years ago there was nobody here. There's a hardware store in town that is just referred to as "Hank's." You don't have to say "Hank's Hardware" or "Hank's True Value Ace Hardware", you just say "Hank's." Everybody knows what you're talking about. It's not particularly big or in a high traffic area, in fact it's in a very low traffic industrial area. The only reason you might ever see it is if you're going there. Point is, it was here before Home Depot or Lowe's and it was the ONLY game in town for like 20 years. It could have been called anything because 20 years ago if you needed hardware that's where you went. Branding had absolutely nothing to do with it being as well known as it is today. Anecdotal I know, but then again using The Buffing Moose as an example is as well.