Logo design suggestions / site design suggestions

[ian]

I'm gonna have to say that I personally really like the current site design, so I'd say it should stay as-is.

[subban]

The current logo colour is fairly hideous, I am glad to see its being looked into.

I think a mashup between http://kimag.es/share/32918175.jpg and http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/160418/ppuk/index5.html could be work very well.

Fozzdogs design is clean and crisp but the section headers are too large and overpower the layout, the gloss should be toned down a little. James has a nice clear design with excellent white space, his choice of colour a darker is more versatile and easier on the eye, the upper bar with space for a random quote or something similar also acts as a very nice frame for the page.

The turquoise doesn't need to flood the whole page and I personally feel doing so is detrimental to the impression of the site (much like the excessively bright cyan in the current logo). Restrict it to the upper area of the screen for the header, and then use it throughout the site, the darker turquoise James has elected to use (which should possibly be a smidge darker elsewhere on the site, leave it alone in the header) should be capable of sitting on the white content areas on the page as needed. Doing so would maintain design integerity.

I hope we are staying away from adding anything inside the flag symbol, viewed from a distance on a poster or t-shirt it will break up the design and reduce identity, keep it clean and recognisable. I feel the same is also true of the site logo it does not need the UK text, the other main parties (and countless other sites) neither have it nor feel the need to, they do not have any kind of identity problem. Any posters, t-shirts or other promotional products will be used within the UK, so why would anyone imagine they were anything other than the UK Pirate Party?

[jez9999]

Yeah but the other PPUKs don't have turquoise as a party colour. So they dont have to surround the logo with turquoise. I say it's better and less garish inside the flag circle, and doesn't detract from the identity at all.

[MRES]

From a pure identity point of view the colour in the logo is to a large extent unimportant.

The cyan/turquoise can easily be used as a visual identifier to support the logo device (such as the on website, web banners etc), but invariably there'll be cases where colour can't be used at all, such as black and white newspaper adverts or cheap black and white flyers for electoral canvassing/campaigns.

So the primary emphasis should be on the overall shape itself. See famous brands such as Apple, Nike for clues to this - it doesn't matter what colour the logo appears in as it's the SHAPE that is the logo you recognise. The colouring should merely reinforce this indentity and give you additional clues to it's meaning.

I think the current incarnations used on the website work well - the strong high contrast black and white 'P' circle surrounded by the block of cyan/turquiose. It will easily translate to a single colour application (either black and white or a single spot cyan/turquoise). However the 'glossy look' web buttons with the cyan infill looks good too onscreen at decent sizes. Like I say - the shape's the important thing, so once everyone's happy with that we can work out variations to be used in different situations (with and without supportive wording). If the shape is unified then different 'finishes' will give us more flexibility.

By the way, have we decided on a particular reference for this turquoise colour yet? It needs to work as a single Pantone spot colour and a CMYK mix for print and also RGB and HEX values for on-screen. I'd be inclined to pick the print colours first (particularly CMYK) as they'll be easier to match the screen colours to than the other way around due to the limited gamut of subtractive colour compared to additive.

Maybe something around Pantone 3125 (Cyan 83%, Magenta 0%, Yellow 23.5%, Black 0%). We could use other tones from the PMS 3105-3165 range to complement it. These colours also split well out of CMYK to give a fairly accurate representation, and should be a doddle to match in HEX values.

Also, should the fonts used be proprietary or should we take a leaf out of the OpenOffice.org book and use an free font for all PPUK material? If we stick to a free font it means that anyone can download it and produce supportive materials without having to rely on one of us 'pro' designers to create the artwork for them in the case of last minute promos being needed for flash events.

If the bulk of logos and literature are available as downloadable resources with areas left blank for variable information (dates/times of meetings etc), we could suggest uses for non-pros to use the resources properly and keep a unified and high-level finish if everything, including fonts, is there for everyone to grab.

So - several issues there, each separate, but all kind of intertwined.

[subban]

I think Pantone 3125 is a good choice after playing with it in the Gimp, initially I was not taken with it, prefering 3145 but I think 3145 is too dark, though it may work as an alternative in some situations

I would certainly agree with the suggestion that non-proprietary typefaces should be used, using a proprietary typeface at all should be a none starter, has this been discussed/specified elsewhere?

The current logo essentially works well as mres says so eloquently. Its really only the current turquoise in use on it that upsets me, it sitting directly on light grey does it no favours either.

Keep the P/sail clean, nothing extra inside that circle, it is a very strong element easily identified at various size/distance.

[jez9999]

I disagree entirely with subban and think that colorizing the circle and putting UK in there (certainly at least, just the colorizing) still leaves the logo perfectly clear and easy to identify. So we're gonna have to vote on that, I think, because I waay prefer the colorized version, then you don't need the turquoise outside it at all.

[jez9999]

By the way, mres, if you're talking about the Pantone 3125 found here:
http://www.pantone.com/pages/pantone/colorfinder.aspx?c_id=6259

... then I don't know where you get those CMYK values from, unless I'm misunderstanding. Your values give me a very different, light greenish colour.

Anyway the colour linked above looks good to me *as long as it's used in extreme moderation*, which means putting it inside the circle, for me. Otherwise it's hard on the eyes. My glossy logo has a gradient of course, but basically has that colour as the 'average' across the gradient.

[jez9999]

By the way, I created some versions of the logo with just the 'uk' on but without the dot prefix, in case that seems too 'webby'. So, it's now merely alluding to the fact that this is the UK Pirate Party:
http://www.game-point.net/misc/pp/logo-large-noshadow-ukonly.png
http://www.game-point.net/misc/pp/logo-large-shadow-ukonly.png
http://www.game-point.net/misc/pp/logo-medium-noshadow-ukonly.png
http://www.game-point.net/misc/pp/logo-medium-shadow-ukonly.png
http://www.game-point.net/misc/pp/logo-small-noshadow-ukonly.png
http://www.game-point.net/misc/pp/logo-small-shadow-ukonly.png
http://www.game-point.net/misc/pp/logo-avatar2.png

[jez9999]

... and would you guys have any suggestions for good non-proprietary fonts that could be used and where to download them?

[Gavin]

Allright, I'll have all these up in a voting thread tomorrow so watch out for it, probably by noon if it all goes well.

James, Fozzdog, do either of you object to me knocking up the mockup/mashup subban suggested to also be in the vote? I really like James' header.

Also fozzdog, put your twitter etc icons up because they're nice.

[FozzDog]

Allright, I'll have all these up in a voting thread tomorrow so watch out for it, probably by noon if it all goes well.

James, Fozzdog, do either of you object to me knocking up the mockup/mashup subban suggested to also be in the vote? I really like James' header.

Also fozzdog, put your twitter etc icons up because they're nice.

I don't object to it, in fact I welcome it

The icons are from here http://bigkobe.deviantart.com/art/Websi ... -100910001

[MRES]

Jezz, I took the CMYK colour split for the PMS 3125 directly from the Pantone Solid>Process reference book. It has the Pantone spot colours with the CMYK versions of them printed side by side so you can easily see if a colour is realistically achievable out of four colour process inks. 3125 translates reasonably well, so it will help to keep some uniformity across different media.

If you're just looking at it onscreen, consider that you're not seeing it in it's true form. You're seeing it as an additive (all primary colours mixed together make white) rather than subtractive (all primary colours mixed together make black) colour representation made up from RGB. Also take into account that your monitor is most likely not calibrated, the 'page white' of your screen's highlights are probably out and not comparative to paper (the colour of paper stick affects the perceived colour of the printed material). If you're using Windows your colours will look nothing like the finished colours, because Windows gamma is way too dark out of the box (which is why nearly all designers use Macs and why programs like Fireworks on the Mac have an option to view things in 'Windows Gamma' to see how web graphics will look on another platform). Just so you you know

But if it's correct, you should be seeing a greeny-blue... turquoise It's not as bright as the colour currently used on the website, but to be honest you're NEVER going to achieve that bright vibrant turquoise out of a CMYK printed colour. The closest you'd get is pure CYAN, but it's not 'green' enough, so you need to add Yellow. Don't forget though that the more ink you add, the darker it gets... which is why I thought it might be important to get this sorted early on before everyone gets really carried away

[MRES]

I found a site hosting open source fonts at http://openfontlibrary.org.

Have a search through using 'Sans' as your search term. We need to find something that is reminiscent of what we have now - possibly with a wide range of weights (light, medium, bold, black, extra black) and obliques if possible. It will allow more scope for use across all situations.

[Tom]

Since everyone else is having a go, I thought I might as well put one forward
I put them in html files so you can get a good idea of the backgrounds

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/160418/ppuk/index5.html
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/160418/ppuk/index6.html
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/160418/ppuk/index.html
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/160418/ppuk/index2.html
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/160418/ppuk/index3.html
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/160418/ppuk/index4.html

I'm liking this one alot: http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/160418/ppuk/index.html

[jez9999]

Yeah, that looks pretty nice and polished. I'd probably add the 'uk' onto the black P flag, so that when used in an international context, it could be identified as the UK party, but that's just me. An alternative would be to add the 'Pirate Party UK' text to the side of or underneath the logo, and remove it from the box on the right (in fact I think I'd do that anyway).

[jez9999]

A slight variation on one of Fozzdog's designs:
http://www.game-point.net/misc/pp/mashup%202.png
... and without the 'dot UK':
http://www.game-point.net/misc/pp/mashup%203.png

[subban]

I disagree entirely with subban and think that colorizing the circle and putting UK in there (certainly at least, just the colorizing) still leaves the logo perfectly clear and easy to identify. So we're gonna have to vote on that, I think, because I waay prefer the colorized version, then you don't need the turquoise outside it at all.

Sorry I hadn't meant to imply that a colour should not be used in the circle, but I was refering to extra lettering, such as .UK or something, my comments were in reference to the proposed site designs that I was discussing (and perhaps use on posters/web/literature, I am sorry if I wasn't clear or I cocked up but I am doing 20 things at once lately and getting in a right pickle sometimes, I am going to blame age for it

On badges/mugs or similar then the filled circle and even the UK would be entirely in place and fitting as there would be potentially no other wording to support the logo, in those places then the logo carrying the colour directly as in the filled circle with slight gloss would be far more aesthetic.

I wish I had more time to be active rather than just post the odd comment, I just hope its more helpful rather than yet another cook spoiling the broth

[jez9999]

And a couple more mashups with much subtler pinstripe background (I personally prefer this, large quantities of heavy turquoise just feel wrong):
http://www.game-point.net/misc/pp/mashup%204.png
http://www.game-point.net/misc/pp/mashup%205.png

[thomson]

Thought I'd stick my own logo design in for consideration .

Of course, if it's liked someone with a bit more skill can take it and polish it up a bit.

[neurve]

i think that looks alright,but i liked the original,but i have a feeling other people don't so much.anyways i'll go with whatever at the end of the day,it'll have to be good in the end though,eye-catching,so that people see our logo and know