Advice on a Logo?

[tilt]

doesn't really convey the style and finesse of the original...

[torstan]

Thanks for the ideas guys. I think the fundamental problem with this one is that it makes such a big deal of being drawn on the background material. If you change the material you inevitably change the look of the logo, or you have something drawn on one material placed on another. So I think the next stab at this will be more a logo as an object that can be dropped on top of my parchment map cover rather than integrating with it. More to come shortly...

[Carnifex]

doesn't really convey the style and finesse of the original...

I just meant that it could be done a bit more stylized - as my example but more "hand-drawn" style.

[torstan]

I totally agree, and the self contained nature of it is very close to the avenue that I'm pursuing now.

[NeonKnight]

The nice thing about a 'self-contained' Logo is ease of use. both in Print Media, Letterheads. envelopes etc.

[Djekspek]

i like the 'da vinci science' style a lot. also the parchment look is great and the new font is much better. also like the coloring of the compass. Only thing i dont like is the shape of the main arrow (cant really point to it, maybe its to thin for a main element) ... ofc only my opinion ... cheers

[Korash]

I noticed in the original post that the two circles (top left and bottom right) were the guides for the F & M. When you moved the letter M you left the guide in place and it really looked off to me. They were symetrical, and if you move the lower one out to match the letter, it would stand out as "misplaced" imho. I might be just me, but everything else has the look of being planned and placed in relation to the other elements, which these cicles don't anymore.

I think removing the circles, framing the logo, solid background, and spelling out the name would be the way to go. I like the newer colors better as well.

[torstan]

Yep, the circle no longer justifies it's location. It certainly needs and edit.

[tilt]

please think about these things:
It's in its own sqaure here - how will you intergrate it with an existing map - should it have a border around it to separate it from the map?

wow tilt... nicely put *rofl* ... yep, I'm all for self contained logos - especially for games as the logo often will "compete" for attention with the cover (as oposed to a letterhead).

[Redrobes]

Since my product name shortens to VD I should like to chip in with the thought that really your logo is more important than the name because you will be putting it about more often than the words mainly due to space constraints. So FM is going to be a very prominent character set as you go around stamping it down. If Fantastic Maps is what you want to stamp about then maybe a logo without the FM would be better than one that has the characters on it. I think VD is almost the ultimate faux pas logo thing I did and I should have gone for something different maybe but I had the 'viewing' bit cast in stone before adding the more optional 'dale' but anyway just also thought that FM sounds like "eff 'em" and maybe you should not do what I did wrong.

With people like Microsoft their logo had the whole name and when making icons for their products then chose to have very iconic but abstract shapes. The E for explorer and DevStudio logos are particularly noticeable even tho they don't spell it out for you. Something unique in color and shape is more important than trying to force the acronym. Google has spent ages shaping up their 8x8 pixel web page "favicon" and although it is a 'g' its not a 'G' like the google font. In fact its very iconic and not at all like trying to force the google name into that space.

Also FM as in FM8 is associated with fractal mapper and though you wont think there would be any connection you would be surprised at what some people connect what with what.

My 2p anyhoo. But since I didn't do very well with my logo then its not worth much more than its 2p face value