Regional Brand needs smart, savvy logo re-design

Shannon Waltchack Investment Real Estate http://www.shanwalt.com/

We're a well-respected commercial real estate firm that has built a reputation on finding good real estate deals and creating valuable opportunities for our tenants, brokers, and investors in and around the Southeastern United States. We have a small, talented, and creative team that treats each other and our client relationships like family.

Our customer base is varied. We basically do 3 things: Buy Commercial Real Estate, Manage Properties and Do 3rd party Leasing and Sales. We work with tenants; restaurants, banks, medical centers, automobile repair shops, and anyone else needing space developed. We work with brokers, seeking to find buyers for property. We work with investors, desiring to see a return in real estate.

We are looking for a redesigned logo to represent Shannon Waltchack Investment Real Estate.

The current logo is attached. The current tree is more pictorial and literal. The new logo should be a re-invented version of the tree concept and be more graphical and stylized..

It should communicate:
- quality but not cold
- sophisticated but approachable
- bold but not loud

Ideas.
-surround tree-mark with type to form a circle/ellipse (label, bottle cap, stamp, or bar coaster)
-shield, representing strength, steadiness, creativity.

Readability is important. The current logo's 'Shannon Waltchack' fails to be recognizable when placed on a real estate sign. This new logo must be readable. The message hierarchy is
1) Shannon Waltchack
2) Investment Real Estate
3) Shannon, Waltchack, Blair & Patterson

Other logos we like that fit the above concepts are attached. Please note these are copyrighted logos already in use.

The files we will require are:
Vector-based- .ai
2-color spot

Please do not use stock images or clip art in the logo. We know istockphoto and google images like the backs of our hands. Good luck!