Please help GFS choose a logo
For those of you who do not know, The Firearm Blog is owned by GunsForSale.com. My boss is trying to choose a new logo for GunsForSale. Could you please take a minute of your time to complete a simple two question survey.
You will simply be asked to choose from a number of alternative logos. No personal questions will be asked, I promise! The survey is here: GunsForSale.com Logo Survey.
Also, feel free to give any feedback about the logos in the comments below. BUT PLEASE, do not read any comments before you complete the survey: we want your raw unclouded opinions.
UPDATE: The survey has been closed. Thank you all for participating.
thankyou for sharing im sure alot of us would voice our opinion again given the chance.
Survey may be flawed, allows multiple votes from same IP. (or perhaps corrects on backend for this)
Both are very sub par. Way to basic. Honestly shoot me an email and I can get you guys a badass logo.
Definitely the reticle, without the extension of the circle into an underline.
Would probably be better if it was not italicised.
The Dragonov is:
1 – A DMR type weapon, it was never meant to be a proper sniper rifle. (since it’s 50 years old, the sniper rifles in those days were still bolt action)
2 – The most reliable and popular military ‘sniper’ rifle in the world.
3 – Very rare in the U.S and much desired. A gun unicorn of sorts.
4 – It’s foreign as in Russian, who are known to be arguably the best small arms makers in the world.
5 – It’s AK resemblance was intentional and is instinctively memorable.
Using an M14 silouhette is possible but in my opinion inferior. The Dragonov was ahead of it’s time and is the ancestor of the latest high tech semi-auto sniper rifles. The M14 on the other hand is a very old rifle design, who’s only reason for popularity now is because the U.S army was cheap and decided to refurbish them to fill the new DMR role the soviets had designed the Dragonov to fill multiple decades ago. The M14 we have now is called the M14 EBR and isn’t pretty, it’s like a frankenstein hack job of a battle rifle, which is exactly what it is.
The type face on the gun logo one should be cleaned up, it’s not clear enough, I miss the ‘.com’ part. The Dragonov gun silhouette is memorable enough, the typeface should be easier to read.
Personally
I love the Druganov logo. The Druganov has a lot of nice curves and diagonal lines. Not too modern, yet iconic. AR suggests military. AK suggests rebel. I don’t find foreign guns unpatriotic.
I think HSLD mall ninja types and milsurp types won’t really care. We know we’re wankers. You probably don’t want to turn off hunters, self-defense types, and women.
But, ALL CAPS bad.
Maybe GUNSforSALE.com
Make ‘for’ grey.
To be fair, you don’t need a picture of a gun to sell guns. Colt’s prancing horse should’nt get mixed up with Ferrari’s prancing horse.
Having said that, GFS needs to carve a niche for itself in the over saturated gun market. Knowing the fickleness of the market and the need to establish a brand identity, there really are only two options -
Super patriot American flag branding
Or -
Snake eater, special forces, super ninja, covert insignia
I will dare to suggest that the honesty is the best policy route and that GFS can establish more good will by being a great organization with good word of mouth and customer satisfaction compared to the PR bull hockey route. But seriously, who am I kidding?
Meaningless logo FTW!
I’m one of those weasel-y internet marketing types with a background in web design, so here’s my $0.02 (Canadian) on the logos.
1. The purpose of the logo is to advertise Guns For Sale and not Dragunovs, therefore, the top logo works better of those two.
2. Of the two logos on the next page, the more obvious choice (to my squint test, at least) was the one with “Guns” and “Sale” in orange, as that’s what the site does. If the site was about selling “For” then that one would have been the better choice.
All of the logos, though, are quite good, and a big step up from most of the amateurish attempts I see on the ‘net. Memo to the firearms community: If it’s clipart in MS Office, it doesn’t belong in your logo!
The one with the gun is a gun-something logo. The one without is another logo that immediately falls out of mind when it goes out of sight, another random company with a logo.
The black FOR with the reticule in it is more baddass because it’s got black on the cross hairs and black is death in Western cultures.
Utterly unimpressive. Take it back to the drawing board. All of the options are more or less objectionable for reasons already given.
If you must use the image of a gun in the logo, an iconic American firearm would certainly be an improvement. I would prefer a cleaner more streamlined logo sans both guns and crosshairs.
i don’t like the logo with the dragunov. The other one was better but i’d say there’s a lot of room for improving that one.
The scope on the rifle looks horrible. I like that logo better, but you have to fix the scope!!!
I agree with most of the above. I voted for the one with the SVD because a logo needs, well, a logo. Text alone isn’t eye catching or memorable. However, I nearly didn’t vote for it because of the SVD. From what I understand, it’s a 4 MOA ‘sniper’ rifle that is mostly sought for it’s funky Soviet appearance. I definitely agree that the image you use will affect who you attract. While all guns have their place, a SVD will probably be somewhat divisive.
Thanks for all the feedback so far. I am sorry some of your could not view the second set. There must have been a problem with the survey software I used.
I could not view teh second set of logos.
I liked the first logo on the first page. The second page just had two small squares to click on. Is there supposed to be a second set of logos?
the thing that got me with the first too, was that the second didnt agree with the concept that a companys logo should condense its image to a small pictoral representation and while both do it (still on the subject of the first two as the rest of the survey ran into problems displaying the pictuure choices) the rifle logo one did it better the silhouette is perfect for this sort of company genre if you will what better than a widely recogniazable rifle even a ‘foreign’ one in regard to american gun culture and as it is a silhouette it isnt specific as to what individual things you deal in but rather general things you deal in, and in keeping with the condensing the bottom logos text had too much space between letters of words it could be a good logo with a few tweaks but other than this, what steve has done for his company is not started getting votes for a logo he’s done the task of developing the logo further to what the audience wants, and the company could learn alot given that they may not have the rescources to plow into the logo but if anyone hired to deal with the creation and development task will do whatever it takes to have pride in his work including listening to all these relevant reader comments to do with the logos and the website malfunctions
thankyou for sharing im sure alot of us would voice our opinion again given the chance.
Regards -David
The second logo in no way made me think the site only deals in Soviet rifles.
Top one wins out of these two because it is WAY more legible. The other one is too stylistic to withstand the test of time, only trumped by the poor choice of typeface. The stroke around the type is too distracting and is affecting its legibility. Good luck!
I also went with the crosshairs logo, however, they should try one *without* the crosshair to the right extending over the u. It looks like a pronunciation accent, as if they want it pronounced “GyoonsForSale”.
The font in the sniper rifle logo looked very 70′s or 80′s to me. The other logo has a more timeless and modern feel to it.
Correction: The first line of my previous post should read”Both these Logo’s are very insipid”.
I too had trouble with the locked up page.
If there are any more Steve, please put them up on the site.
Regards Chris.
Both this Logo’s are very insipid.
I particularly dislike the Draganov version as I think it gives the impression that only Soviet firearms are available on the site.
As for the other one, it is so pedestrian that it will hardly register on the eye or brain.
What I would suggest you do is go to the nearest Art College and offer a prize to some very innovative student for an outstanding eye-catching Logo that will do the job that these two don’t.
The first one.
Simple is good!
The colo(u)r choice depends on the rest of the theme (background etc).
The one with the rifle graphic would be a great logo for the header, but the other one is great too and would be wonderful to use elsewhere on the site
The design with the rifle is bad, it immediately triggers a “black rifle mall ninja” feeling in me. If you think you need a rifle, put a generic bolt action model in it, much more appealing to the broad masses.
I really didn’t like either logo. I chose the SVD logo because it was darker and bolder, but I would rather not have to look at either one…I like the current GunsForSale logo better
Went with “word logo” – A gun on the logo could make sense. However, the SVD is NOT an American design. I would suggest something that either
(a) has some “national ethos” about it (Winchester 1873, AR-15, 1911, Colt Single Action Army, etc … and maybe even a combination of a handgun and a rifle) or
(b) has another type of image altogether – Just like Blackwater had the Bear Paw … distinctive, unique and didn’t “grow old”.
I selected the “crosshair” version compared to the sniper. while the draunov is a cool looking rifle, it is a very specific rifle. now if GFS was deailing primarily with those types of rifles, it would be ok (much like some forums dealing with specific firearms have logos representing a specific of that gun)
but as been stated, the specifics back the site into a corner in terms of an image that is portrayed.
i do like the .com added to show that it is a website, and that it kind of brings the image together as a whole. i much like how the crosshair circle goes around and underlines GFS and stops on the .com.
it’s clean, crisp, has the “gun” element but nothing specific. although one could argue that crosshairs deal with scopes and that can be specific. however it’s mroe general than the drag…
Agreed – unless you are targeting a specific audience (AR or AK for example), tying a firearm to a logo is automatically limiting. The only exception I can think of is something iconic like a Thompson, but even then people would assume you are a Class III site.
Keep it simple and direct.
Nice work on those logos. I made sure to go with a logo that was not only visually pleasing, quick the read and recognize, and easy to transfer into a simple symbol for when GunsforSale.com becomes a titanic, worldwide powerhouse of a business.
GOOOOO SMALL BUSINESS!!!!
Can’t view the second set of logos. Survey Fail.
I was only able to choose between the two first ones, then the page locked up. When i tried to redo the survey, the page said i had already completed the survey.
Just to let you know that if others have the same trouble, the first two logos may get more votes than the latter ones even without being the best ones.
Agreed on the Dragunov. Also the fonts in both logos call attention to themselves while being generic and a little cheesy all at the same time. Honestly it looks like the work of an amateur designer. Sorry.
I think they should consider something like the the one with the rifle graphic, but use something like an M14 silhouette instead.
also:
Guns (black) For (orange) Sale (black) and then the rotated .com (black)
Despite current popular sentiment, tying the public logo to one specific notable weapon does characterize the “target” audience. In this case, a Dragunov sniper rifle, which is 1) a foreign import, and 2) not a very good sniper rifle.
The association inherents the negatives, which imply being a foreign importer of less than Tier One quality. I don’t care much for the “Tier” concept, but that also implies military guns – which leaves out American recreational firearms.
The mental image of Jack Black bumpfiring an AK between beers comes to mind. That’s not the average shotgunner, revolver, pistol, bolt gun, lever action, or AR enthusiast, although we all know that guy and he owns one. He’s cool, it’s his cousin who has the rep. And it’s his cousin who gets in the news daily, who bought his gun from the store with a Dragunov front and center in the rack on the 6 o’clock news.
You notice the pros don’t let cameras in EVER, so the public gets an impression it’s all about cheap foreign guns. Pro’s manage their image, don’t tie it to THAT guy.
I chose the logo with the rifle and the “.com” suffix. My reasons are simple: the rifle looks cool and the suffix is suggestive of a location. Without the suffix it’s just another graphic.
The SVD one too airsoft
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