Hello - please visit www.geocities.com/sandra_wasch to review 2 PDF files and 1 word document containing 2 very different logo/branding concepts I am trying to decide on for my business. Please note, they are VERY draft and it is more the concept at this time. I would like your assistance on which one you like better and any creative ideas you might come up with. E.g. The wordmark on the PDFs is just a grey simple look that would be replaced with the real wordmark TBD - but would remain a simple look as such with no symbol.

Here is a blurb about my business and what I am looking for:

Career safari is a new venture that will seek to provide a suite of career-related products and services to all levels of employees and students.

Initially the focus of the company is to provide professionally speaking to young adults on various career-related topics to help achieve their full potential by encouraging them to find mentors, teach them how to find jobs online, understand how to communicate at work or simply what they might want to do when they finish school. Long term, the professionally speaking will be a secondary income but also serve as a tool to register the users on the 'Career Safari job board'. This marketing approach is currently being used by eBay where they train people how to use it, just to get them to register and start using it. The company will seek to publish and sell a 'networking business card' which will be a personal business card containing a summary of ones resume qualifications and self-published career related books. The website will be a marketing driven web-site and emerge to a career portal described below.

As I mentioned above, the main focus of the company is to design and implement a 'next generation' fully, comprehensive career portal containing career resources, message boards, networking tools, job postings, candidate prescreening and reference checking. To make a long story short, the focus of the job portal is to provide employers qualified highly targeted, suitable candidates at a faster and cheaper than the other 1000 job boards out there. Our core competency and competitive advantage must be our brand to differentiate us from all these 1000 other career sites, but also that the entire functionality stems from networking and mentorship. We working on the concept of how everyone is connected by 6 degrees - so who you know, I know and they know etc. We help people leverage their networks to tap into career opportunities by using their network for mentorship and discover these opportunities that may otherwise not be presented . The company see the career process as 7 different stages you can visit and revisit any time in your life. Job Seekers and Employers are no longer limited to having just their immediate family and friends help them but all like-minded candidates around the world looking to share their career concerns, questions and opportunities.

Like a safari, changing jobs or careers can be a wild, untamed, overwhelming, experience. As in a job search, a safari is unfamiliar territory, so you want to have the best possible guide with expertise to help you navigate through it. The company, Career Safari, is the navigator, and we help guide your clients (both employers, students and existing employees) through the wild, often desolate terrain. A safari, and the exposure to the unknown possibilities can be life changing experience. Furthermore, the safari has no definite end - you stop when you want, and explore as much as you want - and you will probably find yourself on many safari's in a lifetime! By positioning the company as a navigator or guide, we are saying to your clients that we are going to be there the whole way, pointing out opportunities that they may not see or be blind to. We want them to dream big... think big!

I realize you can't be everything to everyone, but the challenge is to have a logo and brand that is not only powerful but long lasting. It shouldn't lock me into any market and be accepted to young adults but the CEOs of the world too. It also needs to not only work on the basic website and letter head etc. but I am very keen on reaching for the stars and even starting my own TV show sampling careers around the world or maybe even creating a magazine.

I do love the zebra stripes because they remind me so much of the different career paths - each line almost forks off to present different paths... and it ties nicely in the Safari theme. I don't like the idea of calling this company Career Zebra though as I said the company is already registered and I really like the metaphor behind the safari.

I want to brand my hummer with the Career Safari brand to really drive the point home of a Safari - coolest looking Safari-type vehicle I think that really draws attention for marketing. When I close my eyes and picture this, I can't see these logos on my hummer...