We study the boundary value problem $-{\rm div}(\log(1+ |\nabla u|^q)|\nabla u|^{p-2}\nabla u)=f(u)$ in $\Omega$, $u=0$ on $\partial\Omega$, where $\Omega$ is a bounded domain in $\RR^N$ with smooth boundary. We distinguish the cases where either $f(u)=-\lambda|u|^{p-2}u+|u|^{r-2}u$ or $f(u)=\lambda|u|^{p-2}u-|u|^{r-2}u$, with $p$, $q>1$ , $p+q<\min{N,r}$, and $r0$. In the second case we prove the existence of a nontrivial weak solution if $\lambda$ is sufficiently large. Our approach relies on adequate variational methods in Orlicz-Sobolev spaces.
