Have you been able to pull good talent from local colleges, Craigslist, or other websites, and how did you narrow down the field? (I am reluctantly moving forward with eLance, but I'd rather find someone local.)
http://www.madebysofa.com/ - Cappuccino logo at http://cappuccino.org
http://metalabdesign.com/ - splash page for http://280slides.com and http://280north.com
http://cocoagrove.com/ - 280 Slides logo and some of the graphical elements in 280 Slides
Seriously, though, the 280 North website looks great.
http://cappuccino.org/images/cappuccino-small.png
It loses any sense of what it is, unless you already know. The larger version on the site is quite pretty, but I'm just not sure it works great as a logo. Logos should still be very clear and recognizable even when degraded a lot (size, lack of colors, etc...).
there are 2 schools of design that a savage like me can comprehend: systemic and emotional. i'm sure that many can argue for the many gradations, but these are the important distinctions/extremes to recognize. that said, it's not either or - successful designers evoke (that's an important word- what does your potential designer's portfolio evoke) their ideas in a consistent/lasting manner. this requires both schools of thought - powerful ideas that can be repeated/propagated.
emotional design is provocation. vimeo is better at this than google - compare the persistent vimeo login page with the occasional google holiday logo. that said, there's a much wider range of emotions that neither of these places touch. good emotional graphic designers will understand how to communicate your product evoking a positive emotional response.
systemic graphic design is the ability to maintain an identity, consistently, and create familiarity. most of us feel that if we were hired as a brand manager for google, we'd have a pretty good sense of whether or not a page put in front of us meets their identity's requirements. that's a test to remember. more than any one event in your brand's lifecycle, systemic graphic design will be there to give you a (relatively) easy solution in any situation, once your voice has been defined. best example in a typeface: helvetica. these designers demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of systems design. look at Paul Rand's work & Josef Müller-Brockmann to see evidence of a system that's designed to be familiar, even when it's radical.
ideally, you need both. an easy metric that would hold up against the best ones i know (and no, i won't release their names, they're busy ;) - they love to talk about their art and they will not hesitate to tackle a new challenge, especially if it seems hard. even at the expense of dayjobs & prior commitments. then, give them space. when ideas seem ethereal, be very clear on your business requirements, but let them solve the problem/bring it back to earth.
hope this helps. graphic design is half of how i discovered (social) hacking and i can't stress its importance enough - it's a useful field to learn about, not just depend on.
It's great for placeholders, but if you can get professional design work done, do it. Don't skip on expenses if it means looking more unique.
When I first setup http://chesstr.com I tried one of the larger, "get a logo for only $150" firms. Needless to say, I was tremendously disappointed. First, my website name was misspelled in a few of the mockups - seriously, how do you manage to misspell 'chess'?
I also felt very pressured to select my logo from a handful of rather bland options ("make your selection so we can wrap things up"). They made some claim about 100% satisfaction, but I was so frustrated and displeased I just walked away - $150 bucks down the drain.
I ended up just doing it myself with gimp. It's certainly not very good - but it was better than the alternatives. B latent plug, anyone have any good logo ideas for a chess website? :)
It's really hard to hire a talented creative director if you know nothing about design. You may want to consider working with a design studio for now, just to learn the ropes and gain a higher appreciation. Poke around design award websites or places like deviantart.com to find one.
http://inthebox.webmin.com/the-new-face-of-webmin
We used a prize of $500 for each logo. In both cases, it was the highest paying contest on the site when started. In the second case, a $750 contest started soon after, but it didn't seem to impact our results negatively. The cost of running a contest is $39 (it was only $30 when we first used them).
This may be off topic, but I think part of is it the graphics, and part of it is the AJAX "feel". By that I mean, even though Google Reader and GMail are AJAX apps, they don't "look" like it. I think that is kind of the point though: they're functional, and they don't get in the way. We used lightbox type effects, loading buttons and drop downs sparingly, to really enhance the user's experience.
So far all the designers I've hired have been through recommendations of friends and they've worked out well so far.
For logo design (yes, I realize a bit off topic) I recommend http://www.designoutpost.com
While I am working on my own startups, I'm also a university student and need to pay the bills through freelancing.
You would then follow-up with the winner if you needed any extra work.
I'd rather pay someone who knows what they're doing and can do it right the first time.
That said, let's see some links to your work. :)
spending a few days looking over simple css and photoshop tutorials can go a long way. most web graphics dont require much photoshoping - just basic techniques.
thanks for the compliments. tweako is hidious - it was an overnight design. streetread is nice but check out the homepage to get the real effect.