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© 2001 by Gary Priester. All Rights Reserved.
I usually save this part for the last, but I suspect if you are like me, you skip it, so I’m putting the appeal for your support in the first paragraph?
Why?
Because without your support, these logo makeover articles, as well as most of the other free content on this site, may go the way of Corel Magazine. And we don’t want that. This site is too important to all of us to let it die. But it could happen. And it could happen soon without your help.
Foster stepped in a few years back, to fill the void left when Corel Magazine stopped publishing. (OMRAY never said they were going to stop publishing, but has anybody seen a copy in over two years?). Little by little Foster has been adding free content (articles and tutorials) to the site so that it has become a major site for high quality, Corel and related graphics products articles and tutorials.
Although the content is free for you, it is not for Foster who has to shell out money each month to pay the writers and contributors to the site. And a lot of this is out-of-Foster’s-pocket. No way to earn a living if you ask me!
So where am I going with this? And can we get on with the tutorial? In a minute.
There are two roads Foster can take. The first is to charge for access to the site, which makes a lot of sense to me. Per article, or by subscription. But this is a lot of work for Foster, and most of you readers expect to receive free content. And who can blame you? You subscribe to certain unnamed Corel magazines, receive one issue and that’s about it. Ditto for the CD you paid your hard-earned bucks for! Once burned, twice shy.
So the second option, and one that is much better for all concerned, is this; if you are going to purchase a book, a piece of software or hardware, anything that is offered at Unleash.com or Amazon.com, do it from this site. Foster gets a small percentage of each sale which keeps the site going and pays greedy folks like me, who expect to be paid to provide content. (I do have five indoor cats to feed and keep in cat litter!)
Foster has redesigned the site to make these “buying opportunities” easier. So maybe this is a good time to catch up on some of those books you’ve been meaning to purchase. Or when was the last time you bought some cool music CDs? And if your computer is like mine, it is getting long in the tooth and full in the hard drive. You can do yourself a favor, get a reward even, and save a great Web site.
OK?
Thanks a bunch. Really.
I received a request last summer for a Web site makeover from an Italian company called Ultimobyte, that sells Anti-virus software and related products and network security solutions from their Web site. When I visited the Ultimobyte.com Website, I thought I detected a makeover candidate. The Ultimobyte logo was in reality, off-the-shelf, unadorned Futura Extra Bold. And nice though this classic typeface is, I thought I could do better. My client agreed and here’s what I came up with.
I wanted the logo to communicate three things, security, Italian, and U as in Ultimobyte. The Italian part was easy. Use red and green, the colors of the Italian flag. And nothing says security like a big, strong padlock. And a capital U looks kind of like a padlock. So I decided to start the logo design project by exploring some padlock designs based on a U shape.
I did my design work in Xara X, Xara’s successor to CorelXara 2. It does about 90% of the stuff CorelDRAW does, and some things DRAW doesn’t. And it does it all very quickly. I used the new Bevel tool to apply a “Chiseled” bevel to my first design which featured a rather official-looking keyhole. I used Futura Extra Bold Condensed for the text.
This lock design is comprised of two capital U’s. The boldest. I believe, was Gill Sans Ultra Bold and I really can’t remember which font I used for the shank. (All those U’s look alike after a while).
An accelerated blend of rectangle shapes was used to create the lines which were removed from the U-shape for this design. It didn’t say padlock, but it had a nice, solid look about it. The text is Gill Sans MT Condensed.
I attempted a design with bolts (the round things). It was a feeble attempt. I’ll leave it at that. The text is Industrial Solid.
This was one of my favorite lock designs. I used the lock from Figure 2, split it down the middle and made one half green, then reversed a white exclamation point out of the design. The exclamation point was created by hand as I could not find a font that I liked.
The last design is a variation of Figure 3 except the lines are vertical. The text is Aurora Bold Condensed.
With the padlock design covered, I moved on to some type treatments. Again, my aim was to communicate security, Italian, and if possible, this time vigilance. I used Futura Extra Bold, the same face used in the current logo, but created an outline version which I split horizontally and colored red and green.
Milton Glaser, one of the founding fathers of PushPin Studios in New York, and perhaps most famous for his 60s poster illustration of Bob Dylan, the one with the colored streamers for hair, created a stencil font, appropriately called Glaser Stencil. It has a more contemporary look than the classic stencil font that one sees way too much of. By coloring the O red, and giving it a 30 degree rotation, it created a European looking no-something-here kind of symbol.
Those of you who remember the i/us logo (did you know that i/us is no longer with us?) may find some similarity in the eyebrow over the i in this design (though the eyebrow in the i/us logo was in face a tilde [~]). Remember I was hoping to portray vigilance in some of the designs, though in this design, I may have been to subtle. The font is American Typewriter.
If the eye in the last design was too oblique, in this design there can be no mistaking what it is. I used Xara X’s swell new Bevel Tool to make the text pop out. It also looks very solid, don’t you think? I eliminated the O and replaced it with a very vigilant-looking eyeball. I could just imagine the eyeball, ever vigilant, animated on the Ultimobyte Web site darting back and forth.
The last design might be criticized as too blatant. Not to mention lacking in subtlety. I tried a more stylized approach using Futura Light all caps. Clean and mean.
Returning to the European symbol for no entry, which I felt was appropriate as this is what Ultimobyte is all about, I created this design, once again using Futura Light, but replacing the O with the no entry symbol. This design was a sure winner. Or was it?
I felt obliged to try a variation of the current logo, using two weights of Futura, Light and Extra Black. I added the stylized padlock featured in Figure 2. Maybe even better than the last design!
I could go on and on (and in fact I did-as I always do), but at this point I felt there were at least three of four designs of which I was extremely excited. But what the heck, not wanting to quit with 13 designs, I did one more using Bauhaus Regular or Medium. To be honest, I don’t remember. And for some reason which I also forget, I modified the y although the normal y in Bauhaus is quite unique with the decender falling in the exact center of the character. But you know, I was getting pretty tired at this point and it was time to get my client involved.
I created a Web site and posted all 14 designs for my client to review in the privacy of his own office. It’s easier for both the designer and the client if the client can make up his mind without the designer trying to prejudice him one way or the other. And I’ve never been much of a high-pressure salesperson.
I’m sure a lot of you skipped ahead to see what the winning logo turned out to be. Well as it turned out, the winner was none of the above. Well almost, none of the above. My client and his team liked several of the designs, but there was no clear winner.
I was asked to look at Figure 13 and see if I could come up with something like this design, but using the original Futura Extra Bold font in caps and lowercase. And here is what I came up with (after a half dozen “refinements”. Almost back to where we started from. But you know what? It works really well, I think. And being close to the current logo, it makes an excellent transition.
So what do you think? Which of these logos was your favorite? (By the way, the favorite for last months ACE logo was a tie between the single film frame and the film strip-the last or second to the last design). Drop me a note and let me know your favorite. You can find me in the Graphics Unleashed Forums But before you do that, isn’t there a book or music CD you were going to buy?
See you next month (I hope).
Is your current logo an eyesore rather than a sight for sore eyes? Let the Maven have a gander at it. Send me your logo in GIF or JPEG file format and a brief explanation of why you feel your logo needs a makeover. I’ll do my best to guide you in the right direction.
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