A local gym in town was bought out, and the owner's approached me to do a logo for them. The name of the gym would be changing in the process, and they needed a logo that they could print on the sign, and for t-shirts, etc. We had a very short window to work in, the new sign was going up quick, the entire breadth of work that follows took place only over a couple of days.

Originally the owners wanted to name the gym 'Gym Rats.' Honestly, I wasn't real thrilled with the name, but I decided if that was the name my rat was going to be one bad ass gym rat. This was the first logo I presented them:

The font was interesting to make, it doesn't exist anywhere I made it. The rat body was illustrated from royalty free stock, but I customized a rat head and made him look 'furry' as well as 'ferocious.'

The owners thought my stone-cold-killer rat with work-out glove, was maybe too intimidating. So with a new facial expression, and a less abrasive font I give you the second attempt:

Okay, I'll admit. Maybe he is a little too goofy now, but I think it helped them to see the difference. I went with two different extremes to try and get a sense for where the middle for the client would be. I personally really enjoy this version. I think it is fun.

Then at the last minute, the owners decide to change the name of the gym. They didn't feel comfortable with the quirkiness of 'Gym Rats,' so they settled on Bedford Gym, named after our county.

This leaves me scrambling for imagery, at least with Gym Rats I had a character to visualize. I then had the bright idea to modify the Rat to look like a Horse, since our little town is the Walking Horse Capitol of the World. Version three:

It was after this third version that the clients finally admitted that they were'nt real keen on the 'character' included into the logo, and wanted something more subtle and less cartoonish. At this point we had only a day before the sign was printed. So I stripped everything down to the basic essence of the logo, and now I give you the final Bedford Gym logo:


At the end of the day it's not about what I would want for my business, obviously I liked the big muscular animal (I tried using it three times) but it didn't jive with the personality of the owners. The end result is something very clean and general, that they felt comfortable with on business cards, shirts, etc.