shh wrote:To some degree it is, but the legibility thing is a fact.

Alright, point taken. If we go by legibility "ratskep" is surely more legible then?

shh wrote:

LIFE wrote:Ain't that just personal preference
Famous logos like Wikipedia, Wal Mart, AOL, Sony are all caps and I'm sure at least the last 3 must have had the budget to pitch some decent logos, no?

To some degree it is, but the legibility thing is a fact. Also, AOL is different because it's initials, IBM is similar, and the others are famous brands, not famous logos. Other than Nike I can't think of a classic logo that's all caps, and with Nike it's actually the swoosh that's classic, not the logotype.

The legibility thing is true, but it's the sort of thing that's more important in road signs than company logos. There are as many all caps as regular logos. Pepsi have just changed to all lower case, but they've been all caps for years. I've got a bar of Dairy Milk chocolate next to me, and that's all caps too, even if the Cadbury bit isn't. I've also got my Barclays bank card reader, which has an all-caps logo, and I'm typing this on my Dell laptop, which is all caps. I can see electrical products by Bush, Humax, Toshiba, Philips and Pure, all in all-caps. And just for balance, I've got a letter from Specsavers, which is written normally. And they should know about reading.

Perhaps most interesting, since you said this, I thought I'd check out some movie posters, because they have that thing of never usually being an automatically recognisable logo, and having to catch people's attention in public and presumably be fairly legible, as well as being longer than your usual logo. And they're practically all all-caps. Look at all of the most successful films in history. All of the Star Wars, Avatar, Titanic, Indiana Jones, Back to the Future, Lord of the Rings, The Dark Knight, Pirates of the Caribbean, Jurassic Park, Spiderman, Shrek, hell, even Gone with the Wind. Harry Potter is the only one I can find that isn't. I dunno if that's just a movie thing, but it doesn't seem to have done them any harm.

Tbh, I think people should just do what they think looks best for their particular design. Anyway, I've officially given up after realising I lack both the drawing ability and the photoshop skills to do it.

Here's a little something I did a while back ...



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Saved as a PNG with transparency.

For today, is it OK to post the same image to this topic and the Draw Mohamud Day topic?

LIFE wrote:Alright, point taken. If we go by legibility "ratskep" is surely more legible then?

It'd be my choice, definitely, I think it's got more punch, and it's not difficult to figure out, but not as straight-forward as rationalskepticism, so there's a bit of a puzzle there, it fits very well imo.

I'm With Stupid wrote:
The legibility thing is true, but it's the sort of thing that's more important in road signs than company logos. There are as many all caps as regular logos. Pepsi have just changed to all lower case, but they've been all caps for years. I've got a bar of Dairy Milk chocolate next to me, and that's all caps too, even if the Cadbury bit isn't. I've also got my Barclays bank card reader, which has an all-caps logo, and I'm typing this on my Dell laptop, which is all caps. I can see electrical products by Bush, Humax, Toshiba, Philips and Pure, all in all-caps. And just for balance, I've got a letter from Specsavers, which is written normally. And they should know about reading.

Sure, there is definitely an element of preference here, but if you look at logo's that are considered classic you'll generally find the best tend to stick to the rules, and last far longer than those that don't, Coke, Apple, Adobe, ABC, all stick to proper (for writing) capitalization).
There are some differences too, the dell is a mixture of a logotype and a logo, the "E" is a symbol as well as a letter-form, but you're right, these rules aren't absolute, but the best way to look at it is that normal capitalization is justified because it's how capitals are placed in normal writing, and lower case is justified because it's more legible, if you're going for all-caps, you should have some justification that over-whelms these two.
Pepsi's logotypes are a bit of a design joke tbh.
http://www.underconsideration.com/brand ... dition.php
As you can see, barring the New Coke atrocity, there's been very little change in the coke letter-forms in more than a century. Pepsi has always sometimes obviously, been trying to keep up, and the fact that they've changed so much and so often, tells us something about the quality of their logo.

Perhaps most interesting, since you said this, I thought I'd check out some movie posters, because they have that thing of never usually being an automatically recognisable logo, and having to catch people's attention in public and presumably be fairly legible, as well as being longer than your usual logo. And they're practically all all-caps. Look at all of the most successful films in history. All of the Star Wars, Avatar, Titanic, Indiana Jones, Back to the Future, Lord of the Rings, The Dark Knight, Pirates of the Caribbean, Jurassic Park, Spiderman, Shrek, hell, even Gone with the Wind. Harry Potter is the only one I can find that isn't. I dunno if that's just a movie thing, but it doesn't seem to have done them any harm.

True, but they're not relying on the logo in the same way, nor for the same amount of time. Also they have to a large degree a captive audience, movie goers are going to seek out movies, and who's gonna forget the opening scene of star wars?

Tbh, I think people should just do what they think looks best for their particular design. Anyway, I've officially given up after realising I lack both the drawing ability and the photoshop skills to do it.

Yeah, the stuff I'm saying is no more than pointers. You should definitely knock something together with a biro if you've got an idea, if the idea is good, we'll sort out polishing it up, that won't be a problem. Don't use photoshop though, it's bitmaps, so it's not capable of producing the kind of crispness you want in a logo, at least not without putting in extra effort that using vector does automatically. Inkscape is free, not sure if I mentioned that or not.
@ Callilessia, that's very nice, but are the pictures copyrighted? I like the font a lot, is it an uncial?

well, here's my first attempt:

^^Ooh, shh. I like those. Especially the one with the red question mark.

Just a word in defence of the all caps used on the present banner. I hate it when people use all capitals in a post or email, as it does make me think of shouting. However I've never made that association to our banner here. Probably because it is quite elegant.

As to RatSkep as compared to Rational Skepticism, I think it is a measure of it's popularity that so many of us refer to it already as RatSkep. But I myself would not want a rat in the logo. That's not what RatSkep suggests to me. RatSkep to me (and I think many of us) means the lifeboat. It would be nice if we could keep that association, rather than rats leaving a sinking ship association.

Just some thoughts.

j.mills wrote:This competition is discriminatory against people who are artistically useless.

But my idea is a rat (with a hat?) looking through a magnifying glass. If anyone with the Drawing superpower wants to run with that, be my guest.

It's already been done. Shame...

If the site's "nickname" is going to be in the logo, then it might be wise to consider setting up a redirect for anyone who doesn't know of this site and taps that in as a domain name. I also feel that, though it may be more "catchy" - it doesn't actually say much intelligible to prospective newbies… Just a few thoughts…

Well, ratskep.org already redirects...

shh wrote:Couple of pointers: firstly,any logo should initially be done entirely in black and white, good logo's are capable of being rendered in a variety of ways, to ensure that they don't become boring, this means they need to be reproducible in a variety of colours, and sizes, and on different backgrounds, so colour shouldn't be a part of the primary design. For example, each sub-forum could have it's own variation of the logo, specific colours have specific associations, so an easy way to achieve a suitable variation for each forum would be to alter the colour. This is not possible if the logo has to be a specific colour.

A coloured gradient that can be changed is always nice in a logo. Something such as:

Could be used as a logo, with the colours changed for different forums. Though I do agree that in principle, it's best to start off with a monotone image. 4 colours max for a logo is generally how I feel - though there are always a few times when it can be permissible to have more, such as the Olympic logo.

shh wrote:Finally, as LIFE mentioned logos need to be reproducible at a range of sizes, so for the final version they should be produced as vector graphics. I'd be happy to finalize the logo for anyone that needs it, but if you want to do your own (and it's better if you do, you're guaranteed to get it the way you want then) you can download inkscape from http://www.inkscape.org/ vectors are small files which can be reproduced at any size with no loss of quality.

Anyone who has Photoshop already can create vectors straight in the program, such as the feathers above, which were drawn in Photoshop and - as such - can be scaled indefinitely, though you have to re-apply the gradient each time, but that's easy because it's a bleedin' gradient. If it's not a vector image, but it's a simple 2 tone (or even 3 tone) image, it can be loaded in Illustrator (which usually comes with Photoshop) and automatically turned into a vector graphic on there.

Other tips for people could be:

Start with a brainstorm of everything you envision when you think of this web site. Tree of life, science, critical thinking, questioning, etc. Then try to think of an object that represents this. It's good to implement this into your work. Example above where shh has obviously equated rational skepticism with asking questions, and has hence put a question-mark into their logo design - a relevant object that immediately sums up the site. Well done, shh.

lordpasternack wrote:If the site's "nickname" is going to be in the logo, then it might be wise to consider setting up a redirect for anyone who doesn't know of this site and taps that in as a domain name. I also feel that, though it may be more "catchy" - it doesn't actually say much intelligible to prospective newbies… Just a few thoughts…

I agree.

"RationalSkepticism" should be the logo. It sounds too geeky though...

Too geeky?

LIFE wrote:Too geeky?

Too serious. Perhaps a Comic Sans should be used, you know, to counter it.














(Don't do it!!)

lordpasternack wrote:If the site's "nickname" is going to be in the logo, then it might be wise to consider setting up a redirect for anyone who doesn't know of this site and taps that in as a domain name. I also feel that, though it may be more "catchy" - it doesn't actually say much intelligible to prospective newbies… Just a few thoughts…

I don't think the intelligibility is too big a problem, we're also working on t-shirt designs, many of which mention rational skepticism, and the fact that you have to figure out that ratskep=rationalskepticism could also be a hook. That it's interesting is one bonus, that it's precise is another, it's pretty subjective ultimately, and I'm happy enough to go with whatever's decided on, although my personal preference is for ratskep.
At the minute though, I think either one is fine, if the chosen logo uses the wrong terms it should be easy enough to rework.
and as mentioned, a google search for ratskep brings this site up, as does putting ratskep in the address, the only problem would be if someone else then took the domain name. Which could be a fairly big problem. If LIFE's happy enough to change the name, or wants to keep it as is, I reckon that's his call.

Oliver wrote:
Anyone who has Photoshop already can create vectors straight in the program, such as the feathers above, which were drawn in Photoshop and - as such - can be scaled indefinitely, though you have to re-apply the gradient each time, but that's easy because it's a bleedin' gradient. If it's not a vector image, but it's a simple 2 tone (or even 3 tone) image, it can be loaded in Illustrator (which usually comes with Photoshop) and automatically turned into a vector graphic on there.

Sure, but it's easier just to start with a vector from the get go, you've no issues with file sizes etc. then, even gradients can produce fairly large size files as bitmaps. But, again, I don't think these technicalities should worry anyone for the minute, once we've a good visual concept I'm sure there's plenty of people here who'd be willing to help polish it up for the final version, concept should be everything at the minute.
I do personally like the idea of having a rat in there, just as a pun on ratskep or rational, I hadn't actually thought of the rats leaving a sinking ship thing, and I'm not sure about the lifeboat bit, I don't think we should let the rd.net split be definitive, I think we've gone beyond that, and I think this site's significantly different in tone and ethos.
(PS, ty all for the compliments. )
(PPS

Luis Dias wrote:


(Don't do it!!)

Fucking don't do that to me.

shh wrote:well, here's my first attempt:

I like the idea with the question mark looking like a lightbulb!

But the font is too thin and a bit bland.

Check out http://www.dafont.com for fonts. Best resource I know.

I like this font:

I didn't know this site was going to turn itself into a goth vampire house.

Maybe have the long "k" have a flag at the top with a question mark on it or something...
Like the mast of a ship (lifeboat)...

Luis Dias wrote:I didn't know this site was going to turn itself into a goth vampire house.

Actually yes, it looks a bit gothy!

Oh my, I take it back. It's the twilight forum!

(run for the hills! run I say!)