[ambush]

Hi I'm a 14 years old graphic designer // programmer..

I made some kind of logo today.. it's my very first attempt in this kind of abstract design.. anyways.. let me know your opinion...

I made some kind of 3D Octopus in Cinema 4D ( rendered in wireframe and phong ) and I added some usual stuff...
http://ambush.avara.net/personal/trendy_ambushed.jpg

[Hobbes]

Overall, I like the logo pretty well. Of course, rating a logo depends, to a large degree, on what the logo is being used for, what its designed to promote. Is it really effective? Is it conveying the idea its creator had in mind?

But, not having that info, like I said, I like it. I would possibly darken sections of it. Not all of it. The contrast of dark and light portions of the logo would have a nice impact. And that will allow you to darken the portions of it you specifically want people to focus on.

[godzookie2k]

My Personal Logo Test:
(note: I am quite admittedly not a great logo designer)

1) Does the logo work in black and white, reversed, and shrunk down to the size of a quarter?

2) How much physical space would this logo require if put on a business card (with appropriate info) as well as letterheads, and thrown on a mailing lablel? would they (space requirements) be too much? (percentage wise)

3) Is this logo simple/clean enough to be resized and scaled and thrown in a corner of something without loss of effective aesthetic, message, etc?

4) Is this logo scalable enough that a non designer could use it on something without it being too much work to "work it in" (to the layout) ?

It keeps going but I think you get the point. I like the aesthetic taste of it but honestly its not simple enough to be a logo. the amount of contrast in it (this is arguable) makes it difficult to picture it being effective on say a photocopied/faxed document. Your delecately done 3D rendering begins to fall apart drastically when that image is shrunk down. Now, why did you add some of the "usual stuff"? Does the token supah-small-paragraph-of-text™ serve some purpose aside from being the..... supah-small-paragraph-of-text™? Even if you are intending on making type unreadable or using it as just an aesthetic element (this would be very arguable from a conceptual standpoint), it should still serve some kind of purpose be it framing, texture, etc. I have a penchant for the "racer/techno" kinda look, don't use it myself but I have a soft-spot for it....when it is used for a reason. Like the Techno-racing game Wipeout for example. The graying out of the letterforms makes it look like its moving fast, what does this "company" do? Are you sure speed is a charactaristic that you want to convey? If this is for a design studio, some might consider speed in designing to affect its quality level. (get what I mean?) Token-geometric-shapes-n-barcode™ do they serve a purpose?

Being a younger designer (not to say I'm an old hack or anything either) I'm sure you gain alot of your inspiration from the web or.... Token-Supahhot-designer-of-the-week™ or something along those lines. I know I did. Just be careful to not get too much of your influence for your design FROM design, it makes your Cookie-Cutter-Potential™ Quotient skyrocket. Learn to find cool aesthetics in other things (like real life), sometimes things that aren't aesthetic at all can give you the coolest ideas.

Example. A few weeks ago I'm enjoying my day off by hanging out at the lake, (I am not a nature kind of person, this was a once in a lifetime occurance) chillin on a pseudo-beach in a wooded area sketchbooking away. For some odd reason I'm sitting there staring at this old tire floating in the river. Tired ideas of Man vs Nature, Man trashing Nature, pollution because of technology yadda yadda yadda, turn into ideas of Nature invading technology vice versas all around for all. (it was much more thought provoking at the time) and long story short I'm at home a few hours later with a sketchbook filled with ideas for layouts based on organic navigations coming out of order, ways to dovetail the two etc etc. Its hard to explain, but the point is you don't always get good ideas from things that were designed before. (unless homage is your point) Creativity isn't a javascript that you can gank from somewhere and change some things around to make it "original". Creativity is a case of divine inspiration that comes down from on high via the most unlikely of channels. You just have to make sure you aren't mentally blocking the channels by looking in the wrong places.

But then again, I aint much older than you so I'm probably just young stupid and naive


</long-winded-sermon-of-doom™>

[ 05-21-2002: Message edited by: godzookie2k ]

[Mac Guru]

I'm with godzookie on this one, what you have is more of an identity than a logo in my opinion. a logo is more like this to me:







: a symbol that represents the company. All are easily translatable into color and black and white. All scale well from the size of a quarter to REALLY HUGE. and All are instantly recognizable, you look at it and think "OH! that's such-n-such company."

The problem with a lot of "logo's" now days is people go overboard making these 3D wireframe / Millions of colors / intense hue designs that look awesome on the web, they really do not translate well to print and fail to be very practical.

You've got a GREAT start skill-wise for I don't know too many 14 year olds that can generate anything, anything near what you made... It just takes time, and education and LOT's of practice to be a decent logo artist... and let me tell you, I've been working at it for a while and I still think I don't get it yet. Keep up the work and stick with it, you seem to have a lot of potential.

Mac Guru

[ambush]

I've made a new one for a pseudo design company.. Again it's not a logo it's more like a "tag" or something ( you know what I mean, right?). I had some inspiration during the technology class at school ... In case you can't read it.. the name is styleTrauma.

from dict.org
trauma:
n 1: any physical damage to the body caused by violence or
accident or fracture etc. [syn: injury, hurt, harm]
2: an emotional wound or shock often having long-lasting
effects

I think this pseudo-logo <--- omg, godzookie2k's influencing me!!
really represents the name...What do YOU think?

ps: click here to see it http://ambush.avara.net/personal/styletrauma.jpg
pay no attention to the "window" at the bottom it's because I took a cmd shift 3 screenshot....

[KaptainKaya]

PLEASE tell me that you also sent this pic to spymac: http://www.spymac.com/cgi-bin/pictur....pl?photo=1079

Notice the same logo?

[ambush]

yep.. it's my background... If you wanna see the photoshop psd file.. I certify that I made this tag... no another spymac user posted my logo I don't know why I asked the moderators to ban him or something. Too bad spymac.com sucks ass.

ps. Spymac banned my ass on the forums with the nick ambush.. So i had to use some lame leet name....

[ 05-24-2002: Message edited by: ambush ]

[KaptainKaya]

Oh I didn't doubt you, I just thought that it was kinda funny reading the Spymac thing and then reading your post Looks cool actually.

[JMII]

I agree with godzookie2k too. A logo is one thing and "design" is another thing. Your piece is a nice design (similar to KaptainKaya signature) but it's not a logo per-say.

For example, here is the logo for my boat:


Here is the one for my buddies (ex) web-design firm:

(sorry it's anti-alias for a black ground!) go to graphicxs.com to see it correctly.

and one from my GranTurismo racing web page:

(once again, it was designed for black page)

Notice how all of these logos pass the godzookie2k logo test... atleast I think they do

- John

[ 05-24-2002: Message edited by: JMII ]

[Too Much Coffee Woman]

tag line is too small (even on your site) try a web font

[ambush]

what about my logo thing ???