Creating a logo... (or how a graphic designer can lose sanity)

I'll be the first to admit, when it came to logo design I always felt like I was in over my head. There's so many things to consider. What font should be used? Should it use two fonts so that something can be accented instead of the whole logo being the same? What color scheme should be used? Should there be an obvious visual in the logo or should the font speak for itself? What about positive and negative space?

For a designer like me, the over thinking of an idea can make you feel like you're going to design the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over again in a padded cell while you're muttering to yourself about the various elements of graphic design. The other problem with a designer like me is that I'm more interested than ever in tackling things head on.

Two weeks ago I thought I designed a decent logo for Octoberson Design. I posted the logo here, on myspace and on deviantart.com. Amazingly, I did get a lot of critiques, all of which were very positive. Then there's always one that will stick with you and ninja your mind.

A designer from Croatia wrote to me about the pros and cons of my design. After seeing some of his logo design work, I definitely appreciated his thoughts on the logo. Tonight I've truly changed the logo from what it's been into something a bit different. It's not as unwieldy as the original final logo and in some ways I feel it's stronger because of how the circular shapes are used compared to making circles work for me as in the original. I'm still not completely sold, but I thought I'd post this version just to show a progression in what I'm attempting.

The thing that's driving me the most crazy is I'd love to just be finished with this and start posting it on octobersondesign.com along with some of the newer work I've been creating, like the business cards I just finished up over the past couple weeks. I've also got some work in the pipeline that I'll post as I go, such as another logo for a friend and also character designs that I'll be starting soon. But, at the end of the day, I'd much rather have something that's good and says something about me instead of a logo that is just simply a logo. Feel free to critique...