The HoSV Logo

Greetings Fellow Humans.

I’ve been working hard to launch HOSV. Hopefully that historic event will happen within a few days. This is my first website and I have a huge amount to learn. So much of what I do is trial and error. I often feel as if I’m groping in the dark. Thank goodness this is the internet and not a brick and mortar store. Since I don’t have to pour concrete nothing is set in stone. Mistakes can be fixed and I’m not dependent on HOSV for my livelihood so it’s low stress. However don’t believe that I don’t care passionately. I very much want you to feel that your time on HOSV is well spent.

One concern of mine was creating a powerful and eye-catching logo. Any successful website, any successful product, needs a really great image for public recognition. Without its world famous logo Coca-Cola would be nothing more than food coloring and carbonated sugar water. I wanted HOSV to have a truly awesome emblem. I wanted something killer, not simply a few letters and a URL to slap on bumper stickers and coffee mugs.

I placed a few phone calls to graphic design studios in Palo Alto and around the Silicon Valley and soon discovered that the sort of logo I was hoping for would cost around four thousand dollars and take about three weeks to produce. It seemed that I was too small potatoes to interest the established studios. I wasn’t a prestige client and no one was chomping at the bit for my business.

But such is my commitment to excellence that I considered biting the bullet and paying the price. But before I did Philippe, who is my web designer, told me I should visit 99Designs.com. That little remark from Philippe saved me thousands. On 99Designs I was able to explain exactly the sort of logo I wanted and set up a worldwide 24 hour contest to create the logo. In less than two hours the designs started coming in. I’d rate them and make comments and the designs just got better and better. In less than a day I had designs that I absolutely loved and it cost only a few hundred dollars. The difficult part was choosing just one. I can’t remember the last time I was ever so pleased with any service. Thank you Philippe and thank you to all the graphic designers who worked so hard and so well to create designs that were so spectacular.