Logo Needed

I’m starting a new blog carnival titled “Best of Money Carnival.” It will be a carnival where the host selects the ten best blog posts on money for the week. If you who don’t know what a blog carnival is, check out this post: http://www.freemoneyfinance.com/200…ices_.html

Best of Money Carnival

Design Goal: Best of Money Carnival needs a logo for the header of it’s site (http://www.bestofmoneycarnival.com), still in development, as well as various other places where the brand might appear.

Tagline: Featuring the top ten money posts each week

The tagline should be incorporated into the logo, though it should be small and unassuming.

Guidelines: A few thoughts from me:
- I want a logo that has both a symbol of some sort as well as the name of the brand. While not a great example, see the design here http://www.freemoneyfinance.com/. Notice how there’s both a star image as well as the name of the site? (I know, it’s not great, that’s the source for a future contest, but you get the idea.) I’m looking for both a unique image (like the star, though I realize the star isn’t unique) as well as the name of the carnival in the logo.- The image should be simple, not be clipart, and convey either “best” (like a trophy or ribbon) or “money” (like a unique monetary sign, bag of coins, etc.)- I’m partial to a green (dollars) or yellow (coins) color that says money, or a bluish “IBM” sort of color that says “trust”, though I’m open to ideas/suggestions.- The logo should look good in color, white (on color background), and black.- I'm looking for a high quality vector format that works with Adobe products and includes standard fonts. I’ll also need jpeg, png and gif versions of the complete logo, the logo symbol alone, and the complete logo without the tagline. I’ll need these all in the colors noted above. I may need a few others. I realize this could be a bit of a hassle and have thus priced the contest a bit higher than I would otherwise to compensate the winner.- The ultimate logo for the web needs to be lightweight to minimize page load time.Design Style: I’m looking for something bold, yet classy. Try to avoid cartoonish styling and florescent colors. The design should ultimately look good on not only a web site, but in print, on t-shirts, mugs, etc. The total number of colors used should be kept to a minimum. The overall design size/shape should be rectangular in format that’s roughly the height and width of the logo at the top of http://www.freemoneyfinance.com/ (the portion that has the horizontal green bars behind it.)

Feedback: I’ll be very active in the design process. I will be checking submissions multiple times a day and will be rating all designs. I'll also provide regular feedback and answer questions and help designers brainstorm if I see something that catches my eye. Initially, I'm trying to limit the restrictions and requirements as much as possible so I can let the creativity flow since I don't have a particular design theme in mind just yet. As I begin to see design elements that I like or dislike I'll provide the guidance needed to ensure you're focusing your efforts on where I see the end result going.

- Professional design that will look as good 10 years from now as it does today.
- Original content.
- Simple color scheme.
- Formats as noted above.
- Rectangular in overall shape.

- Too many colors or a rainbow scheme.
- Serif or other "frilly" fonts.
- Reflection under the logo.
- Generic clip art.