How can I make this logo look better? (Illustrator Gurus, help me!)

as others have mentioned, you need to build some consistency through repetition.

 

the square cap on the ends of N/M is really distracting

 

look to have consistent stroke weight between the crown and your type, right now it's way too thick up top and makes it feel unbalanced - probably start by reducing the crown and see how that feels.

 

scale between elements feels inconsistent as well

 

probably look to delete everything under "nice medeiros", I don't think it's needed (i.e. the word blog and the diamond with horizontal lines)

 

there's also a disconnect between your modern, geometric NM and the serif typeface, try using a sans serif instead (maybe test to see how a geometric sans serif looks? could be too much though, haha)

 

I also think it would be really nice if you use an arch for the baseline of your NM to match that of the crown

 

last point I'll make is that I didn't read the N at first so it's got some legibility issues? I reckon this is caused by a combination of not having an obvious starting point and having a really wide angle as it reaches to the M. you can solve this by making the angles within N and M more regular. you could also try breaking the stroke that connects N and M to the bottom of the crown, this would give N a definite starting point for the viewer.

 

Anyway, I think you've made a pretty good effort here, keep playing around with it! there's never a right or wrong answer when it comes to this stuff, so just trust your own judgement and you will do well

/r/design_critiques Thread