is anyone familiar with creating cool designs for vertical table columns?

[samsoner]

My client is a hip hop musician, and I have been given the official logo for their website. I placed the logo in the traditional top-left corner, but just for the hekc of it I placed the logo as a background for a slender vertical table column that is to the left of the text.

Now I have a couple of challenges: Because putting the logo there doesn't make the design complete, I am forced to do something creative (ambiance design) to the logo yet it has to be something subtle that doesn't distract the viewer's eye from the main text content. So the colors I'm sticking to are a muted black, greys, and white. If I placed something of any color (red, burgundy) then it will be distracting. Here's an example of a vertical design next to text.
http://www.ultimatebestsites.net/

And the layout is attached.

[iLikePie]

to be honest, i dont think it works there.

it's always going to be a lot of empty space, unless you overlap a really scaled up version as well... but i just don't see the point? it's nice to try and be different but by doing so you're just creating more design problems, not REALLY improving anything and leaving less space for content. I think you'd be better to reclaim the spot for the content, and have it slightly bigger and more readable as a result.