I currently have the honor or working closely with Cameron Moll on a consulting project I'm doing. This is cool stuff because he's a rock star in the web design community. That means he's good, connected, and part of the small crowd defining the cutting edge in web design. I recruited his help for my client because I'm confident he'll produce something that will meet the high expectations of my client.

Yesterday we had an identity definition jam session. Cameron's a class act and offered just the right amount of guidance to suss out what the client really wants in a new logo design. The client had previously created his own logo before he gained funding for his project. It was actually a pretty decent logo. It was simple, clean and he didn't try to do too much. Cameron's comment, which I thought was great advice we all might appreciate was this: "If you're not a designer, and you're creating a logo - the best approach is to keep it super simple."

Boy did this ring true. So many times people want some amazing icon/widget component for their logos and they end up looking non-sensical, unintelligible and/or like ugly monstrosities.  My accompanying advice is to work with a simple typeface treatment. Sometimes that's all you need. See Martha Stewart, FedEx, Crate & Barrel, IKEA, Microsoft, Dell, Pottery Barn. Are you smarter than they?