Hey guys, I'm starting a lone developer indie studio (yep, another one), and after finishing a game (Ninja Cat and Zombie Dinosaurs, no you can't play it yet ) I'm going for logo.

Below you can see two versions:

I'd love to get your feedback on the general quality of logo. Which version looks better?

I want to have rather simple and classic logo, with little special effects. My games are rather un-casual, so I don't mind using greys and other "serious" colors.

I think the symbol on right looks quite good, but the text doesn't fit it, visually and maybe also with placement. Any ideas what to change / improve? Maybe third version is the answear:

Btw, can you guess what Koshmaar means? And how does it sound in english, weird or ok?

Yes, it is :) Nightmaare to be precise.

Tomorrow I'll play more with the horse on the center, and show you results. One more question: does the font look kitschy?

I'm really not fond of the white eyes. Or the rectangular border around the horse. But why don't you give the horse a long streaming mane and put that behind the word, so it looks like there's some motion to the composition.

I think the last one is the best. I personally prefer vector graphics for a clean, crisp look (the current look is in some half-way land between pixely retro and non-pixely... If it's supposed to be retro I'd suggest making it more pixely). Also, I'm wondering if a less detailed horse might look better (given the black and white theme).

Also, does Kosh mean "night"? (and what language?) Just curious.

I was somewhat inspired by Lionhead's logo, when it comes to color, positioning and symbol in rectangle.

The logo has to work in every combination: both symbol and font, just font, and just symbol (in that case, I think horse will have to be inside rectangle, so that floating in space horse head doesn't look offplace).

sunandshadow, blank eyes come directly from The Nightmare painting by Johan Fussli:

And I think they really make this painting. Long streaming mane... I can't do nice hair

Cornstalks, yes I think you're right about pixelated/vector thing. It isn't supposed to be retro-pixel, maybe only a litle old-school. So I simplified horse, made him little less white. I polished/antialiased the font, gave it a subtle gradient, also reduced the glaring white border. How about now?

Was:

What should I do with the font, I think it still misses something...

Kosh (in reality: kosz) doesn't mean anything in polish, it's inseparatable part of "koszmar", just like "sham" is bound with "poo", or "spagh" goes with "etti"

I'm familiar with that painting, I never really liked it, lol. To me a nightmare looks like this:

But, it's ok to disagree about this.

Usually a lock of hair is easy to draw - it is just a wiggly triangle, like a wavy dagger:

Here, a rough drawing to show what I mean:

Hmm, looking at this it might also have been good to make the name bigger on the left and smaller on the right.

Yeah, I like that better. That has movement.

Hehe, I very like the Nightmare painiting and that was direct inspiration I know about nigthmare horses from D&D, but using them in logo IMHO would be a little too much, a little to flashy and kitschy... I was also prototyping horses jumping over logo, horse heads on left and right etc., similiar to what you've done (btw thanks for initiative!), but it didn't look good to me.. so I think I'll stick with the design I presented, only do some more polishing.

That's how it currently looks, on dark and light background:

Anyone else has oppinions? Especially when it comes to font, colors, positioning..