I've gone through a lot of different iterations, still can't decide if I want to use it.
https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/220006/b2c211ce-3c43-4465-800e-8a40a590084e/logomountain3.png
I'm sorry to say, but you've gone from one trap to another. You can't have it all! This new one is too complicated.
Think of some of the compositional rules of photography and what makes a good photo, the rules are largely the same for logos, except that a logo ultimately must be more simple than most photographs tend to be. You don't take a portrait with an incredibly complicated landscape in the background and you don't take a landscape shot with a sports game in the foreground.
Pick at most 2 things: the mountains and the N's would be my choice. The aperture, the river, the thin yellow frame, the birds are all too much.
Imagine the logo as a photoshoot with just the N's and a Mountain as your elements. Position the elements in a pleasing composition, whether this means overlaying them, or juxtaposing them, or creating visual lines between them.
Most importantly, start super simple. Start way MORE simple than you even feel comfortable with. Then, slowly add small things, if and only if you feel they will make it better.
Tried sticking with just text, mountains and initials.
https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/220006/72bf6c78-41c0-469e-a112-261e3b15983e/newlogo3.png
It's still way too complicated man. You keep adding all these superfluous elements. Ditch all the brackets you keep putting around stuff and never use em again. Ditch unnecessary lines through stuff.
Already ditched the brackets. Think the last design is really good and I'm going to be using it.
Are there ways to assign line segments to objects? kind of like a flowchart feature or whatever.
What about something like this AmericanWhat? You need something that works well at all kinds of scales, as a watermark on photos, etc. That means simple.
An 'N' forming a mountain in a frame. And an alternate version with the sun if you really want that element. The sun kind of looks like a camera lens in that position as well.
https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/798/3d3dc512-9d0b-41ab-9e9f-58661e203adc/nathannixon-01.jpg
I really like that last one!
You're welcome to use it if you want. I can give you the files.
Thank you! I actually recreated it myself in photoshop. Thanks for helping me out with this little project.
Hey, just a heads up, you shouldn't be using photoshop for this. You really need to be using Illustrator. I suggest getting familiar with it, as you'll need to use it sooner or later.
Oh I'm not a graphics designer, I'm aware illustrator is better for doing this but I don't want to increase my CC subscription just to use it occasionally.
Free online converters seem to exist, though I don't know how effective they actually are.
I think shapes can be exported as svgs or some other vector format.
Complete-ish batch of icons/glyphs:
https://i.imgur.com/Z0OErzF.png
Kind bothered by the proportions/positioning of the red and orange ones, but otherwise I'm pretty happy with it.
https://twitter.com/goodbyecomputer/status/986661213772926976
please dont bully me
You should look into motion graphics in after effects or premier or something, because I think your geometric forms and layered compositions would lend itself very well to animation and other effects.
Ive actually been thinking about programming an interactive version of one of these over the summer, idk what id use it for honestly but it seems like a fun idea to practice
you could do one of those fever dream website using wordpress or something, nowadays wordpress templates are extremely versatile and easy to work with.
check out this website:
Campo Santo
probably just a lot of parallax scrolling and other animations would bring it to life.
Well, it took awhile, but I'm back to Smeetin.
Now I gotta design a cool new background / avatar combo...
After being a lurker for all 21 years of my life, I've decided that it's not really the most fruitful way to act as a designer/artist.
I'm not gonna bombard yall with photos of my work b/c there's just too much, so here's my instagram.
https://www.instagram.com/kegancochran/
ditch the photographic texture (i recognise it from google anyway, you can't use someone elses photo)
i'll share the easy way i give solid stuff a distressed texture and by extension give a preview to the new jaykin bacon design.
since photographic grunge is almost always bad on vector objects, what I like to do is great solid, single colour grunge that's both subtle and 100% opacity, since overlays usually end up looking cheap and lazy.
the first step is to grab your source image (lets say a photo of old paper like you've used) and put it into photoshop. run it through a threshhold filter. edit the threshhold until the amount and size of distress seems about right (the smaller the better imo). then merge the threshhold and image into a single smart object.
then go into the blending options for that smart object and pull the black or white level down until you're left with the single solid colour that will act as your grunge.
make a new empty layer and merge both layers into a new smart object. now go into blending options and colour overlay the colour of your choice (say, white if it's not already).
if your detail is not fine enough, add a stroke to your newest layer and give it the opposite colour of your grunge, and set the stroke to center so it encroaches on itself. adjust the stroke weight until the white is a good minimal size. then repeat the earlier steps of merging it into a new smart object, using blending options to remove the unwanted colour, and making yet another smart object. the reason you're making smart objects instead of just rasterizing it, which you could be doing instead, is so you can go back into the smart objects and edit what you've done.
the end result should be something like this.
https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/227099/ffb80ac4-9a70-4e59-ac80-d3416519ea55/image.png
Seems to me like you should actually just post a couple things if you want to get anything out of this :P
Skimmed through your instagram and it looked like you probably have some cool stuff you should share, but ya, a lot of it was image manipulation (also cool). I find with instagram its a little hard to tell what is yours and what is just a general social post, etc.
Hope this is actually the correct thread to post this.
I don't do graphic design (be it illustrations or motion graphics) too often anymore, however when I do the quality varies massively from project to project. It's usually a mix of complex ideas, a weird skill set, as well as lots of anxiety and fear of messing up big time that causes that.
The most recent commission I did was a logo for a podcast for a client I worked with prior. It was something I never really did before, but I'm kinda pleased with it. Hope I won't get crucified for going a different route compared to most posts in this thread though hehe. I treated it more like an illustration, rather than a classic logo. Shouldn't be the most impossible job to convert down with much less details to a scalable logo however, if I were approached about it again.
The commissioner was very happy with it, after a few adjustments. Mostly regarding about the RADIO text being too deep inside the radio and the smoke making it harder to read.
https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/241899/e9107c2a-03a7-49ea-bfa5-d6600fb103d5/Ad Free Logo Revision 4 smaller.png
I mostly used Paint NET for this with custom plugins and an old free version of DrawPlus to get the basic ideas and wishes down to a very crude concept. Always kinda liked that look of "fake 3D", but it's hard to pull off properly. A bit embarrassed to admit I have been using PDN for about a decade now and I struggle working with tools like Photoshop. It's just very different, in terms of usablity, interface, effects, shortcuts and the sort. Some day perhaps.
..
my organizing skills will always remain messy though. Bet a few can partially relate with this
https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/241899/a27e4d4a-5b1d-4b87-8f61-a3289a052f2a/mess.jpg
Nice. Clearly have some illustration skills. Don't worry about it being different than what typically gets posted here, the more variety the better, we just have a lot of people doing branding and that kind of thing.
In terms of naming things, I'm just surprised it isn't "adfree," "adfree_final," "adfree_finalGoodOne," etc. because thats how mine always ends up haha.
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Finally got around to putting something together for my avatar and background. Feels good to be so squeaky clean.
Something clean but with a bit of a retro vibe to it.
https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/798/e2343daf-5914-4b74-8695-e243a7eb84b0/smeetin-01.png
some icons i've been working on, with varying degrees of success
https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/465/d8111857-d54f-4463-972c-23222b00737e/image.png
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The Graphic Design Thread - Drop It Like a Hotkey
