The Classic Barber™

Please don't feel bad while reading my review. It's gonna be harsh but fair and it's only meant to help you.

When I think of a classic vintagy barber shop logo, I imagine one really well crafted, with subtle flourishes, killer complimenting fonts with nice ligatures and a certain je ne sais quoi which gives it its own personality.

Unfortunately, there is none of that in your logo. It is awfully bland, stale, unimaginative and worst of all, lazy. It feels like it's been done in under 5 minutes, without much research, inspiration and sketching beforehand.

Composition-wise, it's a mess. "Classic", "Barber" and the stars are not properly aligned. "The", for some reasons, is justified to the left, throwing the whole thing off balance. Also, that useless TM doesn't help.

Now, the font. It's not bad. Actually, it's pretty cool and would fit right in if you only didn't use the free version, that comes WITHOUT the ligatures. The result is that you now have a scripted word mark with every single character disconnected from each other. It just makes the logo look blatantly unprofessional.

If you can't get ahold of the full version of this font, you could have created the ligatures yourself. But you didn't, unfortunately. On top of that, the kerning is way off, making the absence of ligatures even more of an eye sore.

Finally the stars. They just look so cheap. You obviously used the shape tool on Illustrator without giving them much more thoughts. And I don't see why they would evoke an old fashioned barber style, as you put it. If you put them there as an indication of quality and professionalism from the client, just don't. The rest of the logo is already bad enough. I get my hair done in barber shops on a regular basis and this logo would turn me down on the spot.

Sorry if I've been a bit tough with my review, but someone had to do it. To be honest, I'm amazed this logo is already in use and no one told you before that it is just not working.

Now, for some constructiveness, I think what is lacking here is a proper creative process. It basically goes like this:

1) RESEARCH: scan the market. Barber shops, they are everywhere now. Look at the trends, what their identity looked like way back when, and how it translates today. Is the neo-classic vintage hipstery style still a thing? Can we go beyond it?

2) INSPIRATION. If you haven't already, get yourself a Pinterest account. You will find awesome examples of barbershop logos like these: https://tinyurl.com/yc94d5o4 Inspiration is the fuel of your creativity. Designing anything without a sufficient amount of it is like starting a car race with a tank half full. You won't go far. There are also plenty of inspiration sites that are there for this very reason.

3) SKETCHING: the most important part of the process. I cannot stress this enough. You have to spend hours upon hours doodling away with paper on the table, pen in hand and computer off. This is the best way to organically come up with cool ideas. It may look like a drag, but it really isn't. As you sketch, ideas will form up in your mind, almost magically. It's an awesome feeling when you see something popping up. It keeps you going and in the end, your logo would like you really spent some times working on it.

This is the gist of it. There could be additional steps, like execution, benchmarking, etc. but now I have to go, I'm late to work ;) The basic 3 steps are fundamental if you wish to achieve professional results.

I truly hope this extended feedback will help you. It isn't meant to put you down. It may hurt at first, but it will hopefully help you in the long run.

Keep it up!

Do you ever post any work or just give your critique? I'm just curious.

Being that most of us don't know each other, some people might appreciate what you say a bit more if you posted some work. Just saying.

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I don't feel bad, I am a grown man but thanks.

I put these logo's up mostly for fun because 95% of what I will post is already in use for small brands.

Unfortunately, what you seem to forget or not see is that there was a brief and a brief, brief given, which means this is for a client.

That get's me to the point. There is that old relationship with client and designer. While the designer usually knows best. It is ULTIMATELY the decision of the Client who is footing the bill.

That being said - Do you think I wanted or would ever actually put the word "the" in such a place? The answer is NO. It is floating off and at one point which I had to fight for was so far off from the logo it was almost a secondary piece.

Multiple fonts were presented and this again was the clients choice.

For that matter I will actually post one of my designs presented and rejected.
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The designer is bound by the client to complete the job to the client's satisfaction or quit or be fired.

Now, lastly, as far as the kerning goes there may be a few parts that are a slight bit off but at optical glance it is not as you make it sound.

TM = REQUIRED BY CLIENT
Stars - You should do some research into a classic barber design and see stars are included in many of them
= Required By Client - IN that Shape.
Stacking and Different font sizes = Req'd By Client

If anything your critique is positive reinforcement that my client in this case has no eye for design or layout, releases poor work that they have adjusted via me and does not LISTEN to a professional they should be trusting when it is all said and done.

Keep it up!

I thought Shawali's critique was fair and insightful. However I agree with you that working for a client who knows nothing about good design can be extremely painful. I think the best approach is to give them what they want but also offer better alternatives. Typically when they see these they will realize it is a better direction to go in, but not always. You wouldn't go to a doctor and tell them what to do with your illness, they are the experts so you trust them to look at the issue and come up with a solution. I think designers should think of themselves in the same way.

Pinterest is a good starting point, another site I like to use is https://www.designspiration.net/

Well I'm sorry this guy was dead set on this being the design.

It looks like it took very little effort, it almost reminded me of some cursive off-version of Garamond. And then some starts got attached to it.

The words aren't even fit together to form any kind of cohesion, they are just kind of stacked on top of each other.

I understand having a client who wants a terrible logo, but those kinds of things should not be added to your portfolio or used to showcase your work as a designer.