• C$300

• 33 designs

• 11 designers

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Logo Design Brief

Introduction:
I’m in need of a logo containing two cartoon mascots for a small new online community focused on homemade vacuum tube instrument amplifiers from the 1940s and 1950s. The name of the community is also the name of the website that is yet to be built, Dellbill.com. The name and rights have already been acquired.

The 3 main purposes of the Dellbill.com community are;

1. To provide free, organized educational and safety information to beginner and intermediate hobbyists interested in Vacuum Tube technology of any kind.
2. To provide a free searchable repository for people around the world to document their own homemade, tube based amplifiers(of any era). This will include uploading pictures, provenance documents and any other related materials a user wishes to include. The site may also allow them to trade and sell their creations in the future.
3. To provide an online archive of the circuit diagrams of vintage homemade amplifiers made between January 1 1945 and Dec 31 1955. The previous two purposes are focused on the wider Dellbill community, while this one is my personal focus and the reason I’m creating the community.

For a variety of reasons, there were thousands of homemade vacuum tube guitar and other amplifiers constructed all across rural North America (and probably elsewhere) from the end of WWII and peaking when transistors started to be seen in some amplifiers, around 1955.

In the early 1950s you couldn’t just pickup a cheap digital modelling guitar amp off Amazon like you can now. If they wanted a guitar amplifier in rural America your only choice was to build one. And so they did. The technology was simple and unlike today everyone knew, or knew somebody that knew, how it all worked.

All of those homemade amplifiers, and not just for guitars, are the focus of the archiving service Dellbill.com will provide. In the preceding 75 years they have largely all vanished, both physically and from a collective knowledge perspective.

Thanks for reading that, now onto the actual briefing bit I guess…

When I first saw the item shown in the “Primary Brand…” 1(unnumbered),2 & 3 images I’ve attached, I knew that's how I wanted the new dellbill.com to feel ( not necessarily the same colours or exact style shown in the original). The item shown is owned by me now and is an advertising tape measure for a furniture design company the was in operation in rural Florida in 1952, Dellbill Furniture was their name. Dellbill sounded very 1950ish to me and I loved the design aesthetic of the logo. To me it was the clean palette, big circles, store sign motif, and the dot in the i that did it. I don't know what the style is, I just really liked it.

What I like about it is that at first glance it’s pretty clear what era its from and even without the “Miami 36” on it, you could probably guess that its Florida, I did. For me it’s reminiscent of the rural Florida (and Cuba) that Michael Corleone visited in the Godfather II movie.

I want the new dellbill.com and it’s logo to feel like that 1950s rural Florida, the small friendly and welcoming place it was then. Everyone was friendly to everybody, even to strangers. And if you needed directions somewhere or a little help changing a tire, the locals happily provided.

In addition to the Dellbill Furniture images I talked about above there are a few “Primary Brand… Truck” images attached. Here's why I chose them. Oh, and the little truck is owned by me too. I keep it in my home hobby electronics shop.

First off, the company on it will be familiar to pretty much all living Canadians and would have been familiar to quite a few dead ones too by now. But the ubiquitous brand recognition (colours and logo) in Canada isn’t why I’ve included the images. It’s the truck’s style itself. That style of truck, and other similarly styled trucks, would have been used by Radio and TV repair men in the 1940s and early 50s in North America.

What I like about the truck, is again, the very simple colour palette and the great contrast. Its first impression says to me, it is from the late 1940s or very early 1950s. It's the shape; the large white wall tires; the engine hood; the rounding of the back end and having 1 big side-opening door; the big fenders and a big shiny front grille. Those are all very characteristic of a service industry truck of that period. Later in the 50s everything got bigger and less rounded off.

The other images attached I don't own and are present only to show some schematic diagrams and tube symbols used on schematic diagrams from a vintage amplifier. There are also some examples of some of the images I liked after googling 1950s advertising cartoons. I liked each of them for different reasons but uploaded each one simply because I liked it. I don't really know why. The cat however belongs to my wife and his name is Chewy, because he is the bane of my existence and chews on everything in the house!! But I love him anyway.

Here are the wants and like to haves for the winning logo (none are carved in stone so if you have different ideas please do submit them)…

I would like the logo to be composed of the name Dellbill, two cartoon characters(profiled below) and if possible something with a truck. The most prominent to be Character One, described below and known as Dellbill Bob. Character Two and the truck should be much less prominent, if present in your design. I know that’s a lot. And I know I don't know if that's two much, so use your own discretion and skill.

Right after the logo design is finished (or once the winner is chosen) I plan to commission the winner to get the characters drawn in various other poses and ways, kinda like character sheets plus, and fleshed out a bit as well depending on the logo design. The budget for that is $270CAD.

I would like the design to clearly harken back to the 1950s era, since that's the when all the technology the new Dellbill.com site is primarily focused on comes from.

Other than on a truck door or side panel, if you include a truck in your designs, I’d rather not use the shape of a vacuum tube on the logo itself, that’s what everyone always does for this kind of thing.

Lastly, the logo & characters should communicate that Dellbill.com is a lively, fun and welcoming place.

Character Profiles….

There are two Characters. These characters will be used on the site to highlight the dangers of working with 1950s era technology and to communicate tips and tricks and highlight other important stuff.
Character One is used to show the correct and safe way to do something and Character Two is used mostly to show the consequences of not doing so. Normally that consequence is electrocution and possibly death.

Character One’s name is Dellbill Bob but locals, customers and site visitors will mostly know him as Dr. B+ (when spoken it goes like it looks.. "Doctor B Plus") and the character is in the radio and tv servicing business. The B+ is a reference to a tube electronics thing. It's the wire inside the amplifier with really high voltage on it, like 500 or 600 volts. It's one of the big reasons the hobby is dangerous.

Character One is very knowledgable about everything related to vacuum tube electronics and runs a little shop on the main street of some little rural town somewhere.

The character strives for perfection and rigidly adheres to safety standards when working. They do great work, safely. The persona should be lively and fun to be around, helpful and friendly all the time. A mild and thoughtful person lies underneath the outgoing personality.

Character Two(currently unnamed so feel free to suggest one) is also fun to be around, friendly and happy all the time but is also very forgetful, disorganized and not mindful of safety usually. Character Two is much younger than character one (but is still an adult) and works in character one’s shop. Character one mentors Character Two. Despite the mentoring Character two will be electrocuted, shocked and killed very frequently on the site because they always take a short cut or forget about safety. That should be reflected in the characters normal state of appearance, generally speaking.

In the characters normal appearance it should be hinted that they get electrocuted all the time and they are forgetful and disorganized. Character two is rearing to go, often jumping in to fix something before they look and paying the price for it every time. Character two is tall, thin and charming, somewhat smart but not wise at all. The character has a heat of gold but sometimes displays they can have rocks for brains.

Thank you to everyone reading this and I’m looking forward to seeing all the new and creative ideas from everybody submitting designs. I’m very excited.

There are a lot of asks in this brief but none are cut in stone and what I really am asking for is your creativity and ideas. If I'm asking for too much in a single logo, and I very well might be, please tell me so or better yet show me so.

Thanks,
Ron

Target Market(s)

Beginner and intermediate hobbyists interested in vintage vacuum tube electronics

Logo Text

Dellbill.com, with the .com much smaller and not emphasized

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Logo styles of interest

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Font styles to use

Other font styles liked:

• Something that feels like the 1950s

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Look and feel

Each slider illustrates characteristics of the customer's brand and the style your logo design should communicate.

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Requirements

Must have

• See the project description

Nice to have

• See the project description

Should not have

• See the project description

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Files

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