Name On Logo: Craig S. Dickson

Software Craftsman, Engineering Leader, Change Catalyst, Agile Evangelist

I am an independent consultant in the software development industry. I am 32 years old and have been working professionally in this field for about 13 years. I have 2 degrees (one undergrad, one postgrad) from a good university with a major in Computer Science. I currently live in southern California.

I specialize in the implementation of web related technologies (client side and server side) as well as the configuration management and development process aspects of a software development project. When it comes to the development process itself, I am passionate about Agile development practices.

I absolutely do write code, I am definitely not a project manager, however I have been a manager/lead of teams and coded less in many circumstances.

I work solo out of my home office most often. Currently I do all of my work for US based companies, however I am originally from Australia and would like to engage with customers there and also other countries in the Asia-Pacific region in the future.

I have sub-contracted for other consultants and also brought in my own sub-contractors to work with my already existing customers.

Industry: Technology

1. Experienced software industry worker with broad knowledge

2. Produces high quality work with an unending attention to detail

3. Will reliably solve your highest priority problem and allow you to concentrate on something else

I target two main customers.

1 - Freelance / Outsource agencies that have projects they have already secured and need to staff up. Generally speaking these contracts are for server-side development and build process automation projects. The specific customer here is the Account Executive at the agency.

2 - Small to Medium-Large companies that are looking to augment their current staff. Private companies (pre-IPO) with venture capital tend to be where I find most of my work. Generally these companies are working on Web 2.0, semantic web or social media projects etc. - basically companies working on modern technologies, usually with a web based product(s); or products they want to push out to modern technologies (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, iPhone etc). The specific customer here is usually the CTO or VP of Engineering or a mid-level manager in the Engineering department.

In both cases the audience is likely to be predominantly males aged 25-55 years old.

Generally speaking I do not do work for mom-and-pop companies simply because my bill rate is too high for them.

I find most of my customers through personal contacts, networking (online social and in person), and by writing articles for my own blog and other sites. Through my writing I always attempt to establish myself as an expert within my areas of specialization. I try to use a consistent personal brand for all of my online identities (LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, blog etc.) and would like to add a strong logo to my personal brand to help make my name more memorable.

- This logo will be used on the web, in printed documents, business cards, letterheads and on presentations.

- The logo should be made up of a symbol as well as my name, however the symbol should be independent from the text so that it can be cropped and used on its own

- My name should either be all lowercase or have the C, the S and the D capitalized and the rest lower case. I don't think an all caps look would be of interest.

- The symbol part of the logo should be abstract - i.e. no clipart computers, cartoons etc

- Instead of using a totally abstract design for the symbol part of the logo, a design based on the letters of my 3 initials (CSD or csd) might also be an interesting alternative

- The symbol part of the logo will probably be used as the favicon of my website, so something that is still discernable when scaled down to that size is preferable

- It's important that the logo creates a strong professional identity

- The logo should be iconic but nothing too eye popping but unique and memorable

- Please use at least 3 colors, but more is OK. Please choose colors that can easily be used as the basis of a palette for a whole web site.

- Please use typography that can be complimented easily with the basic fonts in HTML

- The whole logo should appear on a plain colored background (white preferably), and the background should easily be made transparent.

- I am going to redesign my website (http://craigsdickson.com) around the new logo colors and typography. If you look at the current site you will see that the color blue in various shades is featured heavily. I would really like to make a significant change, so while blue can be used in the new logo, I don't want it to be the main or featured color. I want the new website to be cleaner and slicker (e.g. apple.com's white and brushed metal look with bright colors used for effect)

- I will also be using the colors and typography from the logo to design Microsoft Word and Powerpoint templates

- Don't include the slogan in the logo, I just mentioned it for context. I do use it though as my Twitter bio and on LinkedIn etc.

- It is important to include my middle initial in my name as I use it consistently to differentiate myself from other similarly named people. If you Google my name without the middle initial, only about one of the links on the front page is related to me. If you Google it with the middle initial included, about the first 15 links or so are related to me. I tend to always include the period after the S for consistency.

- The overall shape of the logo should either be square, or a rectangle that is wider than it is tall.

- It is my intention to provide feedback each day, but please keep in mind that I am a developer, not a designer! :)

(Web)  (Print Media) 

Just wanted to reiterate that I DO NOT want the slogan included in the logo. The logos that have included it actually do look nice, but the slogan is not a central part of my brand and it may change over time so I think it would be best to leave it out.

Please remember that I am trying to get away from the color blue. So you can use blue if you want, but please DO NOT make it the main or dominant color in your design.

Also, I said I wanted at least 3 colors in the design, but after seeing some of the early entries I have realized that even the 2 color designs will work just fine. So use any number of colors you like as long as it still looks professional etc.

Thanks!