fett on 8/9/2007 at 19:36
Cool- I've been waiting for a thread like this! Can we change the name of the site?
The_Raven on 8/9/2007 at 19:39
To what? "Kick in the Teeth, Pat on the Back"?
Dark Arrow on 8/9/2007 at 19:40
I assume you have realized by now that TTLG is not such a nice place outside TEG and the FM forum. Luckily you didn't post this in ComChat. I believe those guys would have killed you on the spot.
sNeaksieGarrett on 9/9/2007 at 05:07
sigh. Well I
am and amateur when it comes to graphical art, that's why i say I don't claim to be that good. Of course amateurish work isn't going to be that good, but I actually thought I had something here. Now that I really take into account the first few, they were pretty sorry. The last few ones were much better, and I actually utilized the banner size it is supposed to be.
Quote Posted by addink
The last three ones are indeed a lot better than the first ones. But they could be a lot better. They have nothing that lifts them upto or beyond the level of current logo
Might you want to elaborate on that? Like how could they be better?
So you don't think one of the very last three could be considered the same
"level" as the current one? I mean, if you think about it, its quite plain and it used a circle like I did in the first few pictures I made. Hell, that's where I got the idea in the first place to have a circle in there. Also to give them a bit of a decorative feel because just plain text is boring.
Quote Posted by addink
On the topic of effort: if something is done in a short amount of time, it's practically impossible to have cost a lot of effort. And I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, this is the first time you've actually used that software and that a lot of the effort went into figuring out the software, instead of designing the logo.
Yeah in a short amount of time there isn't a lot of effort, I agree. However, I'm trying to say i put
some effort into these. Oh, and to correct you, no its not the first time i've used the software. XD I've used it many times before. However, I've only started using it in the past year or so I believe. It was a replacement for photoshop, because I don't own a legal copy of it so I needed something free. Mind you, Paint.Net is a good app. That's why I use it. If you mean "tweaking" the effects yes, but not "figuring out the software". I don't think anyone would remember how something should be set in an effect (im talking about stuff like gausian blur, glow, etc) unless they wrote it down or they are just an uber geek. =p
Quote Posted by addink
When posting stuff like this do keep in mind that a number of people on this forum use image editing software on a daily basis, some actually making a living off it. "Fooling around with effects" is actually quite recognizable.
All this really wouldn't have mattered if you wouldn't have hinted that they were good enough for webmasters to implement.
I suppose your right.
Quote Posted by addink
Design a logo for your own site, heck, design 20 _completely_ different ones, pick the five best ones, try to improve those. Pick the two best of those and improve some more. Then select the logo your most happy with, the one that represents you best.
that's actually a really good suggestion. See, helping one another is a lot better than biting each other's heads off.;) Anyhow, speaking of logos, I actually posted this one on my site today... I used a tutorial to figure out how to make fire, and this is what I got:
Inline Image:
http://www.freewebs.com/sneaksiegarrett/firebanner.gifQuote Posted by addink
As with any logo, keep in mind that there are numerous situations you might want to apply it, and that in all situations the logo should be roughly the same or at least be recognizable: Larger on the home page, smaller in the header of a content page, tiny and square as a favicon, printed in B&W, on a flyer, as a letter head, printed on a t-shirt, or as a tattoo, whatever you require of it.
Right, but in this case, I was only interested in the banner on this forum:
Inline Image:
http://www.ttlg.com/forums/images/bbtitle-ttlg.gifQuote Posted by the_raven
Considering your registration date, you'd think that you'd be aware of the the teasing/very sarcastic nature of the membership here.
I suppose I would, but the thing is, for most of my time here, I've had friendly help and there are some decent people on these forums. But yeah, I am aware of the assholes on here, it's just that I'm sick of people bashing other people (like me) and so I had to say something.
Quote Posted by the_raven
By "no effort", people mean that the images look like they were created by a 12 year old in about a half hour;
Ouch, that hurts. Hey, even if I was 12 years old, its still possible to be good at image creation had I been a nonstop graphics artist.
Quote Posted by the_raven
I only do a quick cut and paste merger of images every now and then, but I know quality and hard work when I see it; this isn't it.
Yeah you're right I guess.... But I've done some other stuff that I didn't take 5 minutes to work on. I took longer, because I worked at it hard. I suppose my problem here is that I simply don't have all the time in the world anymore to work on a logo for hours. Hence, a shitty logo design I guess.
Quote Posted by the_raven
I do have to admit, I'm a bit surprised at your sensitivity here. How do you survive in the big bad internet by taking everything to heart? Hell, how do you survive in the big bad world?
Like I said above, I had to say something. I'm sick of people being so rude and not acting like adults. Hell, I admit I'm not good at all, but that doesn't mean that you can just go around and say things like "wow you suck" and stuff. Is being nice too hard to ask, I meant really.
Quote Posted by fett
Cool- I've been waiting for a thread like this! Can we change the name of the site?
Er, I never said anything about changing the name of the site. This is about customizing the banner to make it different. Don't you like variety? Oh wait, I guess you don't that's why you are saying that.
Quote Posted by Dark Arrow
I assume you have realized by now that TTLG is not such a nice place outside TEG and the FM forum.
Indeed.
addink on 9/9/2007 at 10:39
Quote Posted by sNeaksieGarrett
Might you want to elaborate on that? Like how could they be better?
So you don't think one of the very last three could be considered the same
"level" as the current one? I mean, if you think about it, its quite plain and it used a circle like I did in the first few pictures I made. Hell, that's where I got the idea in the first place to have a circle in there. Also to give them a bit of a decorative feel because just plain text is boring.
Well the thing with the title image on top of this forum is that it's not a clear cut logo, logos usually don't feature a welcome message.
Then there's the obvious use of the LGS icon which is the main recognizable part of the image (also the part that is used in the favicon, so you might argue that the icon is the logo).
Given that your design featured the LGS icon as well, we'll have to look at the added items that make it "TTLG forums" instead of "LGS":
The title, welcome message and tilted oval together form a sort of layout template that is reused for all the buttons, tying the whole page together.
The template is simple enough, yet it is recognizable.
Your design mainly features a font. Sure there's the gradient but that seems to be the background on top of which the logo is placed, the background does not feel like it's part of the logo.
So your design mainly consists of the unaltered icon and the words "ttlg forums" written in dauphin. And that compared to the current image is not a lot.
---
On your flames logo: looks nice, but it feels more like a style choice than an actual logo. Usually it's a good thing if a logo is still recognizable when rendered using different styles. Once the flames are gone, your left with a font, again dauphin.
Note that there no law stating that a logo should be more than a font. For instance Google has a very well known logo that mainly consists of the catull font, but to really distinguish it they need the color and drop shadow. Lucky for them their main presence is online so they usually get away with that.
Briareos H on 9/9/2007 at 13:03
Those aren't particularly great either.
Thing is, it's actually hard to design a good, influential, unobtrusive yet visually satisfying logo. And while sNeaksieGarrett's latest creations aren't bad per se, they don't fit those requirements any better than the old and respected -though severly outdated in terms of design- ttlg forums banner on the top of this page.
When the whole visual style of the site is revamped it will have to be remade accordingly, but I don't see any use for a new version right now.
sNeaksieGarrett on 9/9/2007 at 19:52
Quote Posted by addink
On your flames logo: looks nice, but it feels more like a style choice than an actual logo. Usually it's a good thing if a logo is still recognizable when rendered using different styles. Once the flames are gone, your left with a font, again dauphin.
Its not really a logo though. I just made it as a banner to be the title instead of having plain old text.
The first few ones I suppose were suppose to be logos, but when you examine the others, now that I think about it, they aren't really logos XD they are just banner images. Which is what the image on this site is, plus the LGS logo. So yeah, from what you said earlier, I suppose you can consider the logo to be the LGS icon, and the rest as just a way to identify the forums. I don't know. what do I know about logos?
Yes, if I remove the flames all you have is dauphin. Which imo is boring. Are you saying that you'd rather have just plain text? :o
Oh, so you are saying, if it was supposed to be a logo, it should be simple so that when used with different styles its still recognizable? is that what you mean?
addink on 9/9/2007 at 20:09
Yes, that's exactly what I mean.
But seriously, do the 20 version exercise. You'll be amazed about how when you think a design is good, when you work on it further you find that the early version wasn't that good at all. Also when creating multiple wildly differing concepts you'll find they can sometimes have ideas that complement each other.
BTW 'plain' text doesn't have to be boring, there are near endless ways of tweaking a text and its characters so that they'll form a composition on its own.
SubJeff on 9/9/2007 at 20:20
I'd rather plain text or a logo that wasn't stolen from the 90s, like your site. Man, that place is like a trip back in time. What is with the awful hard to read text on a garish background thing man?
The logos were ok. But what was the point of posting them here? Post them in CommChat, just to see what happens.
