contest or contract?

greetings,

i realize that the opinions here will be a tad biased, but i trust that people will be honest with me.

i am wondering if holding a logo contest is the best thing in my situation. i know pretty much what i want, so it would be fairly simple just to give a designer those directions and have that person try out a number of variations. this would also be quicker. however, i am open to other ideas, so seeing some different approaches would be interesting.

what do you people think? anything else that you would ask of me that should guide my decision?

thank you.

Hello 6max2themax....
contests offer more than one viewpoint/style on your logo....hiring a designer directly is always a good thing, but usually your limited to that designer, and their style/approach(and a limit on how many concepts you will get, normally 3-5)
:)The design team here, has many different styles, so its always interesting to see what is brought to the table:)