I'm not artistic enough

[OldRightHander]

I'm at a stage in my business (expedited trucking for those who didn't know) that I want to expand and start looking like a bigger business, so I can grab some more accounts and maybe recruit some more drivers so I can be a good greedy capitalist and make some more money.

Greedy capitalistic ideas aside, I'm finding that my knowledge is fine as far as running freight, how much to charge for different kinds of loads and all that. I can do this business backwards and forwards, but I am a lousy artist. Where that comes in is that I would like a logo of some sort. Nothing fancy, just some simple rendering of my company name that could be reproduced on business cards, the top of my web page, the signs on the sides of vehicles, etc. I'm figuring someone on here is either good at that sort of thing or knows someone who is. If so, I would like to know what it would cost me to have something like that done. Maybe I could see some things from different sources and see which one I like best. Basically, I have trouble drawing a straight line, so any help is appreciated.

[durl]

A friend of mine does work like that. Here's his link:

www.danjnewsom.com

[dougdirt]

I think what you are looking for may really surprise you in what it costs to have done to be honest with you.

[westofyou]

Our company charges 3-6 k for logo creation

[OldRightHander]

I think what you are looking for may really surprise you in what it costs to have done to be honest with you.

You're right, but I have found a couple more reasonable offers. I just have to narrow it down.

[dougdirt]

You're right, but I have found a couple more reasonable offers. I just have to narrow it down.

Thats good. My friend does graphic design for a living through a firm here in Cincinnati and they charge outrageous prices for it. Hopefully you can find someone reasonable that can get you what you need.

[Jpup]

you could probably get someone to do it for cheap using photoshop. how fancy do you want to be and what do you want on it?

[Dom Heffner]

ORH, I had a logo created for my business for a few hundred bucks, maybe even less.

You need to get bids from people who handle small businesses and not large ones.

You aren't trying to be a national presence- you just need something to fill space on your letterhead, envelopes, and advertising that makes your company look as though it's ready for business.

I had the people who do our marketing materials whip something up and received a discount for already being a customer.

Perhaps you can bundle a package of marketing materials you were going to use anyway in with a logo design.

I have built my business on direct mail, and we have been leaders in our market since day one. If mailing is something that can help you, let me know and I can give some advice offline.

[TRF]

ORH, have you considered building a website for your trucking business?

[Redsfaithful]

http://99designs.com/

That's what you want. Will cost a couple hundred dollars, you tell them what you want in a contest brief. dozens of artists will give it a crack, and you can refine while the contest is going on (usually lasts a week). I've had multiple logos made through there that I was happy with. Mine were for website logos, but they have plenty of businesses looking for identity packages and that sort of thing. There's a decent amount of talent using that site I have found.

[OldRightHander]

ORH, have you considered building a website for your trucking business?

I'm working on it at the moment. That's one of the reasons I was thinking of a logo of some sort. I will have to make signs for the sides of vehicles as well and it would be nice to have one thing that would go on both.

[OldRightHander]

After finding out how much this was going to cost, I did some shopping around and settled on a piece of software that I used to make my own logo. I think I did ok. Here's the basic logo. I added my DOT number to the bottom of that for a vehicle sign.

[RedsFan75]

Nice. I like it.

[Mario-Rijo]

After finding out how much this was going to cost, I did some shopping around and settled on a piece of software that I used to make my own logo. I think I did ok. Here's the basic logo. I added my DOT number to the bottom of that for a vehicle sign.

That's pretty sharp ORH, I really like the design.

[macro]

Okay, I'm confused. Shouldn't that say "OldRightHander Transportation"?