Your right, the new logo is not like any of the others. And its a little out of place with the rest of the site, I just put it on the home page to allow people to see it. The rest of the site needs to be redesigned to fit with it.
Regarding the icons in the poll, the "others" (reminds me of Lost) were simple that is true, but they all lacked one thing - universal recognition. A question mark with a beak is cool, I agree, and yes its simple, but to someone seeing it for the first time, with no context, it means nothing. Many people did not see the beak as a beak - they saw something else.
I get you dont like the orange color, but orange is complementary to blue on the color wheel. It may go, so ignore that for now.
I dont find it too "busy". And it transfers just fine, here is how it would look as a gray mark:
Your "elderly" comment could be taken the wrong way by people that are older (like me for example). But I dont see the magnifying glass as something only old people use. Detectives use it, scientists use it, etc. Binoculars? I see your point but I still think the magnifying glass is a better icon, more universal. In fact most web site search engines use it on the search button. Never seen binoculars used for that :)
The fonts are different in the gray mark, larger and stronger to handle the smaller size. Here is one for your web site:
Anyway I very much appreciate your thoughts and while we dont see eye to eye on everything that is okay, its not a perfect world.
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