Looking for logo critique

[Trombones13]

After some grappling with Inkscape, I made a potential logo for my forum:



Since I know there are quite a few here who are far more talented than I , I'd like to hear your feedback on the logo. Too complex? Too unexciting? Too ___? Let me know what you think (and what you think would improve it), please and thank you!

p.s. I'm going to make the logo bigger later.

 

[Shelley]

I'll be honest I'm not liking it.

Why the double stroke (border)? as well as the double stroke you have a drop shadow. I'd remove the blue stroke it's not needed. As well as the removal of the blue stroke I feel the whole logo is small and crammed, somewhat cluttered and lacking that touch of creativity.

The text "internet radio" is far too larger compared to the main text. Perhaps settle for a 1px stroke and remove the blue border and drop shadow. I find the sub heading (slogan) text should be simplified.

I'd also recommend that you get more adventurous with the choice of font. For me it's far too generic looking.

Other than that, keep experimenting and you'll get something better.

 

[CTXMedia]

Not liking it either.

Voice is the largest part of it, when really I would expect the site name / logo is supposed to be The Voice!!

You could try a much larger "The Voice" (capitalise 'the' too - the current trend for lower case everything is just wrong!) with 'Internet radio' running underneath (Internet should be capitalised too IIRC). Maybe even THE VOICE for more impact.

What about some sort of radio symbology too, even if it's some abstract clipart that you can mash-up with a bit of filtering / drop shadow?

What about some headphones either side, with the head band spanning the top of the logo in an arch? (Have I seen that somewhere before - Napster maybe?)

I've always found logos a bit of a nightmare to quantify, and even harder to draw/develop, so good luck with it and keep throwing them at us for feedback.

Cheers,
Shaun

 

[dutchbb]

Most has been said already, but IMO the biggest problem is that the font is not right. It should have more volume/thickness.

 

[Trombones13]

Yeah...I think it looks nicer in Inkscape. lol

Thanks for the advice, everyone; I'll drop some of the extraneous elements and will look into the headphones idea and capitalization that Shaun mentioned (that was something I'd thought of doing around the "O" before I thought of putting the speech bubble there; was also thinking about the "wave" thing [sorta like the RSS logo...not sure how to explain this, haha] that radio stations do a lot). May have to switch some colors around too so both blue and gray are used (they should be the main colors). Any suggestions for good fonts (or places to find them)? I looked around for a while and couldn't find any inspiration for a good font. :/

Thanks again!

 

[Blandt]

How about :

1.


2.



3. None of the above

 

[Blandt]

I just used this font : http://www.dafont.com/harabara.font

http://www.dafont.com has a great open source selection

 

[Trombones13]

How about :

1.
View attachment 6338

2.

View attachment 6339

3. None of the above

lol

I just used this font : http://www.dafont.com/harabara.font

http://www.dafont.com has a great open source selection

Ooh; I'll check that one out.

 

[Blandt]

PS.

The logos I posted above are Trombones work

 

[Ingenious]

I really like it. Looks professional and easy to read. The musical note emphasises the music aspect.

Trombones the thing with logo critique is you will get such a broad range of opinions. I like your logo, others don't

 

[CTXMedia]

How about :
View attachment 6338

Ah, now that's better already. Straighten out VOICE and maybe add some small musical notes above the headphones (to the right) and drop Internet radio down a little so it's not so "tucked up" underneath the key element "VOICE" ... and capitalise 'Internet' ... lol

Just looking again at your initial submission and at a quick glance (I hadn't noticed it before) I read ... VICE ...

Cheers,
Shaun

 

[jmurrayhead]

I guess I'm going to be different...apart from the fact that it looks a bit too cramped....I actually like it...or at least the idea behind it.

 

[Trombones13]

OK...so, an informal poll, lol:

a. Do you like the speech bubble replacing the "O," or does it make the word look too much like VICE?
b. Does the smiley-face-in-the-O thing from the first image Blandt posted look corny? (that was my worry)
c. Looking at Blandt's second posted image, do you like the "sound bars" idea (I'm going to spread those out more if I move them further...unfortunately, Inkscape doesn't have an option to make those lines parallel to the curve of the O)?

I understand I'll probably get some very different ideas from you all since you all have your own tastes, but I'd still like to know your opinions...after all, the entire idea of the forum/radio station will be for users to have their opinion on the music.

Also, since we've already posted two of them here, lol, here were my original five drafts without color:
http://img820.imageshack.us/img820/4988/voicelogos.png

Thanks again for your input! I'll do some more playing around once I finish some homework (because I am not taking it home with me this holiday weekend ).

 

[Blandt]

a. certainly you do not want any VICE, or anything that might confuse people to imply VICE so stay away from it

b. Smiley face is cool corny is a lot better then cheesy ... So I say go with corny

c. no. that's cheesy

Good luck ..

 

[dutchbb]

From the ones posted I like the one with the smiley face the most.

 

[CyberAP]

My mockup

​

 

[Ingenious]

I like the ones with "the" in the speech bubble the least. This is because the bubble emphasises and draws attention to the word "the" and yet it is an inconsequential part of the logo which you should not be drawing attention to at all. Stick with your original version

 

[Peggy]

I like CyberAPs mockup, but without 'the' in the bubble.

 

[Trombones13]

My mockup

View attachment 6341​

Ooh; I like it!

 

[Trombones13]

I like the ones with "the" in the speech bubble the least. This is because the bubble emphasises and draws attention to the word "the" and yet it is an inconsequential part of the logo which you should not be drawing attention to at all. Stick with your original version

"Original" being the one in the first post, then? It's confusing how it's posted here, but technically the ones in the later post came first, haha.

ETA: Ah; I see what you mean with the bubble idea and the attention grabbing it creates. Would adding the speech bubble there without a word inside it, but to represent the "voice," coming from the mic be OK in your opinion?

Also, any ideas on making the logo seem to have a "social" aspect? The only thing I can think of is a pair of speech bubbles (or a person, but that seems out of place to me unless it's the face shown earlier).