Love the blogads logo tee-shirts? If you’re a blogads seller or buyer, please drop us a line with your address and specify your preferred color and shirt size. (Remember that American Apparel run small.)

Once your shirt arrives, head over to our new Facebook page and post a photo of yourself in some cool location, whether foreign or just around the corner.

OK, a stage we didn’t anticipate, a list of finalists. Just too many interesting ideas and executions to grapple with. But also the realization that the comments contain many vital insights. (I for one loved Carm Hodzic’s Typewriter until I realized that it did strongly echo those tiny RSS tags.)

So I’ve published nine logos for us to focus on. Each seems minutely improvable in its own way, either in colors or emphasis or readability. If the creators would like to submit an amendment or two, this would be welcome. Write me and I’ll send you the appropriate URL.

As you can see, my colleagues and I selected logos that are predominantly simple and rough-hewn. Viktor’s “see logo live” functionality pushed us hard in this direction. And, to make biases clear, we’ve leaned unlitteral, avoiding illustrations of writing, typing and speaking. Some of the finalists invoke those acts, but none portray them.

The comments so far provide good insights about how logos might improve. In this go round, the only comments we’ll publish will be focused on “how to improve this logo.” I hope creative criticism will push us to perfection.

I am very grateful to all the people who created a logo that is not in this list. There’s a treasure trove of creativity here. It will make a fascinating dig for some design archeologist in 100 years. I hope you like what you see and will continue to contribute ideas and support our collaboration.

I’d hoped for perhaps 100 logos. So far, we’ve had a total of 281 logos submitted, 150 of which are now here.

We’re hugely pleased with the quality of contributions. A friendly designer had suggested that we’d only get 1 great submission for every 50 (something about the second standard deviation), but I think that roughly one in five are fantastic. I’m also happy about the level and quality of public involvement. We’ve had roughly 120 comments so far; in a number of cases, designers have taken advantage of feedback and tweaked their designs; some generous designers are offering each other tips.

Submissions close on September 9. You can wait until everything is public, or head over now to comment while designers still have time to incorporate your suggestions.

Some staff favorites: Oneshape, talking logo, Tangerine Garage, Chalkboard Garage, hodgepodge, Rip Torn (not the actor). Beyond these, there are a number of brilliant designs… the trick is trying to picture how the design would fit on our site AND on t-shirts and bumperstickers. There are a number of other great logos in the “unpublished” category — these will be uncovered once submissions close.

UPDATE: Please note that this contest is over and we have selected a winning logo as of Fall 2005. You can see it on the top of this page and any other page on Blogads.com.

Yesterday on the phone Doc Searls expostulated, unsolicited, that the current Blogads logo is “butt ugly.” He’s not the first to complain.

The logo was actually a mistake. Three and a half years ago, unhappy with the creepy corporate logos a professional designer kept proposing, I scribbled in my notebook an inkling of what our logo might look like. As a placeholder, we scanned that scrawny image and stuck it on our prototypes… where it has lived ever since.

In the spring, I asked some blogger friends about inviting the blogosphere to help create a new logo. I fantasized about a piece of graffiti or something hand-drawn — some graphic incarnation of blogging’s hand-crafted joy and social richness. But their feedback was mostly negative. Blogging friends in the ad industry said “do an RFP, hire a pro, draft a creative brief, hammer out a brand identity… do it right!” Demotivated by that feedback and with lots of other projects bubbling, we put the idea on the backburner.

Well, with the third anniversary of Blogads’ first sale looming and a new programmer on staff but not yet locked in the madhouse of Blogads 3.0 coding, we’ve decided to FINALLY adopt a new logo. Please help us do better. Here’s the link to more information and the logo submission form.