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Need some (budding artist) crtique

skoker

skoker

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Aug 6, 2005
1,839
0
First of all, I want to say that this was made in ImageReady, not Photoshop, because PS refuses to open some some strange reason.

Anyways, I just created this logo (attached) and was wondering what you all thought of it. It's going to eventually become the logo for a website, aptly named 'mixlife'. The logo itself is on a transparent background, it's shown in the screenshot as on top of some CSS backgrounds.

This is also my first Adobe app creation, so any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

-skoker
 

Attachments

  • Picture 1.png
    Picture 1.png
    12.1 KB · Views: 212
What is "mixlife"? Is it something to do with music?

This is entirely my opinion, but I would simplify it down a bit. I'm guessing that you want a fairly 'fun' look, judging by the logo. However I personally would try to use as few colours as I could in a logo, and as few typefaces. Now I'm not saying you should only use one typeface and one colour, but just to think "Is this really necessary?" "Do I need this colour?" "What does a second typeface bring to the logo" and so on.

I don't want to say "Do it this way" at all, because that isn't the way to learn, but think of the best logos you can. Apple and Nike work as an iconic symbol. Adidas works as a flexible 3 stripe. Companies that use just text like IBM or CocaCola are simple and eyecatching. How many really good logos do you know that use a lot of colours and several typefaces at the same time?

I hope that doesn't seem as if I'm slagging off your logo. It's just any logo is worth paring it down and paring it down again. I think the exclamation mark makes it clear it's an 'exciting' website without a lot of colours and typefaces. Everything that is in it should be there for a reason - try it in black, with one typeface, and the exclamation mark, and see what you need to add from there. Black and red can be really dynamic. What if the exclamation mark was red, and the rest black? Do you need the second typeface then? And so on.

As I say, it's just my opinion though. It's definitely worth looking at your favourite logos and working out why they're great. It's also worth looking at similar sites' logos and working out why they look good or bad.
 
I read it as "buddhist" instead of budding, so I was like "sweet, but wtf could he want.

As for your logo, I think it looks just a little too busy. But good. Maybe loose the bright green.
 
No offence, but I don't really care for all those colours together. Usually, when using a variety of colours, you pick a few that look good together. You could do different shades of blue, different shades of green.. etc. or you could do complementing colours like red and green, blue and orange or purple and yellow. (Purple and green also look nice, imo) Or you could use all neon, or all pastels... etc. Your selection of colours kind of seems random, without much thought put into it.
 
I'm with the others when it comes to the colours... use as few as possible, or at least use matching colours (ColorBlender or similar sites can help finding matching colours once you've picked one base one you like). If one (or more) colour(s) stand out that should have some significant meaning... That's as close to a rule I'm willing to go... ;)

Another thing, more subjective, is that I don't care too much for one of the 'i's being upside down. I don't think that works too well since the word contains two 'i's (especially since they don't "match" style/font-wise)...
 
I'm not keen on it. It's confusing and it doesn't tell me at all what the logo is for. Some well established brands don't need anything else, but whatever this logo is for does.

As for the second idea, it makes me dizzy.

Hell I couldn't do any better, but I still don't think I like it.
 
I like Lau pretty much said everything that needed to be said. Start in black on white, and only add color after you've created something you like. As for the exclamation point, I think that Mitthrawnuruodo made a good point, saying that it bothered him that the two "i"s were different fonts. Try starting with a single font, and just inverting the second i, instead of using the exclamation point. That may work. It may also not. But I think that it'd be a pretty good place to start.
 
yeah I think it's a bit much, looks like something you would have seen in an anti-drug ad from 1992.
I'd choose one colour for all the letters except for the ! then I'd do something funky with that to make it pop.

edit: Something like this, note the trendy reflection to give you some street cred :p
 

Attachments

  • mixlife.jpg
    mixlife.jpg
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I think it depends on what this is for. What business or person is this for? Is it for like a blog? then fine. It should probably look a little less 'little tikes' if it actually is for a business of some kind. I can see using different colors for the 'i' and the '!' but leave the rest alone (one color) with some shading/lighting filters if you want.

Tweak it, post it, and we'll comment again
 
I guess it helps to mention the context of the logo: It's for a mac-ish community website, hence the combination of Apple Garamond and Apple Myriad Pro (Semibold) fonts. The colors of the letters were intended to be the the original iPod mini colors.
 
amacgenius said:
(skoker, every title of threads you make makes me think you're a newbie, it's scary.)
Click to expand...

It's descriptive, instead of the 'Need Help Please!!' that everybody else uses. :p
 
In general, I think it's a cool logo. But in some ways, I agree w/ the others about the mix of too many colors & fonts, both of which make it seem a bit to "busy".

But I also agree that the addition of either reflections or dropshadows would add a lot of impact to it.

My only other suggestion is to try it with the m & l capital letters, for a little stronger first impression :)

Good luck with it!
 
Would any of you who submitted logos above be interested in doing a bit of light graphics work for me? There'd be a fair amount of pay involved.
 
My question is why is everyone obsessed with reflections and shadows? They rarely make sense for a logo. Just because apple does it...

Anyway, about the original logo; your concept is admirable (mixlife = mix of different elements) makes sense. However, it's too disjointed and the elements (typefaces, colours) don't complement each other at all. So either try to use elements that are different yet complimentary, or (my opinion) go another route. Find another way to convey a mixture and leave the type treatment simple, or focus more on what mixlife is rather than the name.

:D
 
mac.FINN said:
My question is why is everyone obsessed with reflections and shadows? They rarely make sense for a logo. Just because apple does it...

Anyway, about the original logo; your concept is admirable (mixlife = mix of different elements) makes sense. However, it's too disjointed and the elements (typefaces, colours) don't complement each other at all. So either try to use elements that are different yet complimentary, or (my opinion) go another route. Find another way to convey a mixture and leave the type treatment simple, or focus more on what mixlife is rather than the name.

:D
Click to expand...


because reflections are COOL! Just like iWeb!!!
 
Sketch, sketch sketch! Then start in black and white. Look around you, ideas are everywhere from a small collection of crumbs on a table to the way grains curve on a wood door.

I would not use more than three colors, or more than three fonts.

If you are not succeeding, get away from it for a bit. Your direction is going somewhere, you just can't be satisfied after 10 miles of driving in that direction. Cause that's what it's looking like.

Oh, to agree with some on here. Logos should never have drop shadows, glowing bits, reflections or low res clipart!
 
Cant believe no one brought this up... But a good idea to is usually creat logos as vectors, this way you can use them for everything else in the future. You can either experiment with different styles in Illustrator or then bring the logo into Photoshop to add some.
 
dornoforpyros said:
yeah I think it's a bit much, looks like something you would have seen in an anti-drug ad from 1992.
I'd choose one colour for all the letters except for the ! then I'd do something funky with that to make it pop.

edit: Something like this, note the trendy reflection to give you some street cred :p
Click to expand...

my vote for the best design, catching but simple.
 
_bnkr612 said:
Then start in black and white.
Click to expand...

For me this is key. I never add any colour to a logo until it is almost(or even totally) complete. A realy good logo doesn't need colour as an identifier. And simple is usually better. Of course there are alwasys exceptions but they are few andfar between.
 
dornoforpyros said:
booourns! all I did was copy apples style and worked in the ! point in blue. This was a 5 min job and is not worthy of compliments.
Click to expand...

well, the amount of time it took to complete imo doesn't take away from the final product. if you spend 5 days on something and it stinks...well, it stinks.

simplicity is usually king with design.
 
M-theory said:
well, the amount of time it took to complete imo doesn't take away from the final product. if you spend 5 days on something and it stinks...well, it stinks.

simplicity is usually king with design.
Click to expand...

toche', maybe I should have replaced the 5 minute statement with "no real thought or effort went into this"
 
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