Logo for New Marketing Consultancy

We recently launched a marketing consulting firm and need a logo to use on our business cards, corporate materials, etc.

The company is owned by 2 women, and we primarily work with b-2-b customers in the financial services arena.

Can you help us stand out from the stuffy, buttomed up types?

** we want to start the contest now, and will provide feedback through Thursday Feb 12th. There will be a week lag time where one founder (me) will be on a beach and off the grid.

Winner chosen on or about Feb 23

MarketingTBD

We are pretty open.  We would like to incorporate an icon, unless a text treatment is compelling.  We just want to be wow'd. 

We are not a design agency, we are a strategic marketing agency.  That said, we do marcom work for our clients, including web, print and other creative services, but we don't want to be thought of as a design studio.

The letters TBD don't represent our names, but more a play on To Be Determined (or two bitchy divas?)

We do have a web site.  It's our starter site and is fun.  it will probably have a life of 8 months until we have the time to put some time into it.  Don't take too much direction from that other than understanding our tone of voice. 

Do not incorporate the tag line from the site ...

- show logo on a white background (we need to envision it alone)
- if you want to show how it would look on other backgrounds no problem
- prefer san serif or modern font
- elegant
- eye catching
- stand out on white background
- one or two color
- creative
- feminine, but not "girlie"
- like jewel tones.  we've been representing the company name in dark gray and eggplant
- we really like the eggplant color
- the colors should be well thought-out to support a pretty web safe palette
- should represent in black/white and gray scale without losing impact

- stuffy
- predictable
- a mark so complex that it can't translate to a small size
- overly script type font
- Dark or medium blue.  financial services and related companies are all blue.  if a blue is used, a turquoise may be ok, but not as the primary color.
- overly whimsical, we want to be taken seriously
- overly artsy.  we are a strategic firm and don't want to be mistaken for a design agency