Rejected Banner Ad - Unethical?

I designed a banner for a company, and the feed back I got was that it was spammy looking, because of the fake search bar. What do you guys think?

I think its clever, because it is so obviously a banner ad. The slight movement of the cursor may get your attention, and it get's the point across: "this banner is about search engine optimization." Or at least, I thought so.



Above is the Rejected banner in half it's glory (the other half has the business name on it, which of course is confidential).

Thoughts, anyone?

Coincidence or Rip?

About a year ago I designed this through Facebook's Graffiti app:


I recently saw this online:


I mean , grant it - it's not the exact same - but come on! that's pretty close.

new photography site coming soon!

Oh.... this is exciting. Dara and I are relaunching our photography business in 2009, with a new logo, look and feel. Which means a lot of fun for me: new site, new blog, new business cards - EVERYTHING MUST GO!

But "Why?" you might ask....

Well, Curtishots has been great for us, but the name.... the name! What can I say, it sounded catchy and it was an available URL. But, it didn't really say "yo yo yo! We're a married couple that shoots weddings together!"

Here is our old logo:



It was fine at first, but after 2 years I was asking myself "does this branding do our work justice?" The answer was no. Our style has evolved, and so has our target market. We are shifting from a "hey everybody, hire us" to a "hey you, cool couple - WAZZZUP!" haha. well, maybe not quite. Here are a few of the logo variations we'll be using:




I'm not sure if this new logo/branding gets our style across, but that's our hope. What do you people say? (yeah, i'm talking to my 2 blog followers)

these variations are being used in different ways depending on the median. Why? we're done with consistency, thats why! haha. a new logo for every purpose. functionally designed logos. why put a square logo in a horizontal space? why do the opposite? see what I mean?

Here is some of our promo material so far:

A&D promo materials

but wait, there's more:

for every comment left on this post, I will give $1 to this homeless woman I just met today. if you leave more than one comment i may consider it as a worthy additional dollar on your behalf! So comment away, let's see how many people really follow this blog.

don't know what to talk about? how about the idea of multiple logos to fit the many forms they'll be applied to. critique my logos, or brainstorm another one! its up to you.

PEACE

Mammoth men

Yo yo. Alright, so - I've been following this sweet blog all week called Mammoth Men. Its 12 guys who go on a bus trip with cameras in hand, and the blog readers get to choose their adventure and win prizes etc.

Anyway, I sent them some fan art - they loved it, and I think it might have given them the idea to do a "Pee Your Pants" competition. Haha. Anyway, thought I'd share the stuff I sent them.

Here is a photo they posted about to jump into Lake Powell:


then I added myself as the 13th mammoth man, jumping off:

Here is their original logo:


but then during their trip, the bus boke, and they had to cram into a van, so I made them a new logo - haha:
For the contest, they said "make us pee our pants!" - I'm not sure I did that but hopefully I will have made them chuckle a bit. I did a few mash-ups with their photos.

First up, Mammoth chicks:


Mammothenator:



Gunman mashup. I put Justin Lyon into the photo on the target. Here is the original poster:

here is Justin shooting target:

Here is Justin on the target:


On all three designs, I know I could have spent a lot more time, but for once I wasn't worried about perfect detail, as long as it looked decent.

update: I won! Just kidding. There was some way funnier stuff posted - the winner definitely made somebody piss their pants!