Re: Not snazzy (was: New Unicode Savvy Logo)

From: Theodore H. Smith (delete@elfdata.com)
Date: Wed May 28 2003 - 08:22:17 EDT

  • Next message: Michael Everson: "Re: Announcement: New Unicode Savvy Logo"

    > They were loosely modelled on the W3C HTML validation logo, which
    > is comparable, in some ways, in what it is trying to do. See:
    >
    > http://www.unicode.org/consortium/newcomer.html

    >> My third was that I probably ought to say it anyhow. Maybe they will
    >> will take a look at other large organisation's logos and see how to
    >> make the Unicode.org logo as snazzy.
    >
    > Well, it is a "Unicode Savvy" logo, not a "Unicode Snazzy" logo. ;-)
    >
    > And one of the design goals was to make it small (but recognizable),
    > so that it wouldn't burden the loading of pages that might want
    > to use it. The snazzier you make it, the more you make people
    > pay (in time and bytes) for loading the snazz.

    I disagree, but perhaps I didn't explain myself well enough. OK, here
    is what I meant.

    1) Pink or grey? It's almost a "yukky pink" or a "boring grey". Color
    change isn't likely increase byte size any more than it will decrease
    it. SURE, it is the same pink your website uses, however a color may
    look right or wrong depending on the other colors about. On the rest of
    your website, it looks OK. In the logo, it doesn't.

    2) The spacing on Savvy doesn't look right. Its too wide, and the font
    should be a snazzier font. The red letters I really don't like. I'm not
    sure when red lettering is good, in fact. Red looks like the crossing
    outs that a teacher might give. It's often used for comment coloring in
    developer IDEs, meaning like "not here", or "ignore". I don't think
    that's the right image.

    3) Why not go for a blue "savvy" or a green? Blue and green suggest
    more like "in harmony", and savvy is about being in harmony.

    4) In fact, why not skip the word "savvy"? W3's logo doesn't use it. It
    doesn't really have a pleasant ring to it. I'd say even "Compliant"
    sounds better. Or even just the tick is better.

    5) I do like the "Unicode" lettering, however there appears to be
    whitish pixels around the letters. Especially noticable on the pink
    logo. Some extra white space is needed, also because the letters are
    too compressed and harder to distinguish.

    6) The tick isn't quite right also. Its WAY too short on the long
    stroke. It looks a bit stunted and unhealthy. The box behind the tick
    actually gets in the way and is superfluous. It really clumsifies and
    awkwardifies the image. I know W3's tick is a right angle, but why not
    a more flowing graceful tick? That really implies elegance. Or is
    elegance something your company isn't about? (Some people who complain
    about the decomp/comp mappings might say it's not).

    Why not put up a call for Unicode logos? Instead of asking for an
    inhouse one to be made, I'm sure you'd get more logos offered than you
    could know what to do with. At the worst, you could have a design to
    learn from.

    Some of my logos were made with suggestions from other people. I did
    the work, I did most of the design, but important elements came by
    other people's ideas. This way I own what I do and it is "in house",
    but still I am open to external improvement.

    Hey, if you can give me a tiff of the "Unicode" word (in it's large
    original format) which is the part that I actually did like, I could
    re-do the rest for you in PhotoShop v6 format, and submit as a
    suggestion.

    --
         Theodore H. Smith - Macintosh Consultant / Contractor.
         My website: <www.elfdata.com/>
    


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