Preserved Topic: Asylum Mission #287: For FAQ's sake, let's make a logo!

Greetings asylumnites,

a few of us crazy folk have decided that we need to exploit the skills of the inmates in creating a logo.
a logo that will refer people to the F . A . Q .

currently, the icon title that we're considering is "it's in the FAQ!", but any alternative suggestions are welcome.

so, put your brains together, and let's see what we can come up with.

a few key issues for your consideration (these may be updated):

• There will be only one successful logo. We want to create "a single image that will become synonymous with the FAQ"
• This mission is collaborative, not competitive. Submit whatever entries you wish, but the second that they are submitted, it's public domain. Any other asylumnite can alter / add to / destroy your submission, and submit that version. It doesn't matter, lets just work this one out as a team.
• The final version will be voted on by any interested asylumnites from a shortlist. With the help of some other opinions, i'll determine a shortlist of the top few options, and we'll vote from there.
• There is no current closing date. I know lots of people are busy, so let's see how much stuf we can get out there, and when things are rolling along nicely, i'll slap a closing date on the project - and make sure i give at least a week or two notice.

if there are any other suggestions, i'm all ears.

Now let's see what nifty logo we can come up with.

Might I just recommend that it be kept *small*, rather like an icon moreso than logo?

Cell 769

Adaptable

I'll give that a go, sometime I have some free time. Where on the forum would it placed ? as in top middle or bottom of the page, and on every post ?

Nope, it'd be used as a link within the posts (like, I ask you a question, you know it's in the FAQ, you post an answer adding the little 'it's in the faq' icon so you look smart and cool).

defenitely like synax one most

well, i think i'll give this a shot
letz see what we can do on this!
heh

-THE SPACE-

cool .. I'll see what I can do


.::. cEll .::. 513

Here's my offerings jus a quicky button!!!


Cheers Aroma

[This message has been edited by aroma (edited 11-22-2002).]

Yeah, I think I'll give this a whirl...

Heres a quick attempt:

Just playing around ...



[Hmm... those bars don't look exactly how I imagined them. I'll have to give that another try later ]



[This message has been edited by kuckus (edited 11-22-2002).]

as a note to everyone...
we're making this as a means of getting away from the "rtfm" response...
so while I can't guarentee that your image won't be chosen if you incorperate that.....
it's highly unlikely. dig?

As for my interpretation of this.... I would think that the image probably shouldn't go beyond "normal" button size.... 88 x 31.
Asylum colours; a bonus.

FAQs n' Bits: Michael

I would like to see a button button... dang it... shattner... I will give it a shot.

hah!... took me a sec on that one, mahjqa.
eheh... good stuff.
might be a tad too much on the abstract side tho. =)



FAQs n' Bits: Michael

mahqjuh

that looks like.... a neat design. I didnt even know what it said till Michaels post.

Its pretty though.



                                     

Just a really quick attempt, got some ideas in store,
i like the idea of it being nice and simple.





[This message has been edited by Swavey (edited 11-23-2002).]

[This message has been edited by Swavey (edited 11-23-2002).]

we need a button... and it needs to be easy to see....

heres bees my base idea... the transparency may need work and i am thinking the colors may need to be tweaked... and it will probably be sized down a few pixels...

yadda...

or not... it may be perfect...



edit: Daaaag! I'm Gooooood! Who da Man Now eh??? Eh???

[This message has been edited by eyezaer (edited 11-23-2002).]

Oh, just a button? Oh well, I got a little carried away. I'll post it anyway. =)

hehehehe.... It gets my vote man. hahahahaha... lovin it!

jstuartj

A neat idea that i thought of, cause i and all of you have sen many times a newbie ask a question, and have at least 4 people respond with basically the same answer, with this "button" people will be posting it over and multiple times in one thread, I figure why not try something such as what follows.....



Just a seggestion, I think it looks clean, suiting to the asylum, (uses same shape as the "Slimies" we use)
and just figured it could make a good addition to the forum bar.
But could just be a button to if bar is no good...



any good?

[This message has been edited by Swavey (edited 11-23-2002).]

well, Slime,
if you could get your's to be a tad smaller, it'd get my vote, too!

Swavey - if I'm not mistaken, the idea for this is that when somebody asks a question that's in the FAQ, people can just post this image - instead of answering the same question over & over again. Having the button in part of the forum bar kind of defeats the purpose IMO.

quote:

---

... many times a newbie ask a question ...

---

Oh, and you're still a "newbie" too (don't get me wrong, so am I).

yeah i thought of that right after i posted,
so i edited with leaving it as just a button, Yeah Im still a newb, but i was refering to newbs who have no ambition to look for themselves,

sorry....... (so does this mean my design as a button is out? lol)

edit: ya snuck in a post about 10 seconds before me, I think... heh.


FAQs n' Bits: Michael

Just screwing around with 3d renders of pills, came up with this.



The pills on there own, if anyone would like them.




jstuartj

jstuartj: Lots of good ideas here but you pill one really jumps out at me - as well as being technically excellent it fits in with the whole Asylum. I don't mind not having any text on it so play around with the pills on their own - a single one half the size of the large ones you posted perhaps? Something along this line would certainly get my vote.

___________________
Emps

FAQs: Emperor

Another quick go:

I agree, I like the idea of a pill... already have your black pill.. a bright orange pill would be a good link to the FAQs...
although, the circuit board one was pretty slick too.

I think the idea Swavey was getting at is not to change the idea of what this thread is about, but if the thread is part of something that is easily listed in a faq, that a button would become part of it automatically, sort of like when you move a thread or close one, or what have you. Sounds like a lot of work to me, but an interesting idea. You see a custom icon if the thread is new, or has new messages in it, this could actually be a good place for the faq icon... if the thread is deemed to be an RTFF posting, the little folder could become an FAQ icon to denote that. It is a separate discussion though, isn't really part of THIS thread. heh

$0.02

I do like Slime's but I agree with Michael when he says:

quote:

---

we're making this as a means of getting away from the "rtfm" response...
so while I can't guarentee that your image won't be chosen if you incorperate that.....
it's highly unlikely. dig?

---

___________________
Emps

FAQs: Emperor

make slime's smaller, and go with it!

-THE SPACE-

bwhahahaha! 100% Asshole.





[This message has been edited by Michael (edited 11-23-2002).]

To illustrate my point of what we'd like not to see..... I've asked synax to whip something up...

quote:

---

---

thanks man. =)


FAQs n' Bits: Michael

can you give me one more day .. or throug the weekend I'm working on something .. and I hope it's liked

jstuartj .. do you mind if I use your FAQ pills they would be perfect for what I'm doing .. I don't have a 3d program to do nifty pills like that .. much appreciated if I could use them


.::. cEll .::. 513

[This message has been edited by RammStein (edited 11-24-2002).]

quote:

---

The pills on there own, if anyone would like them.

---

I'd call that an open invitation, Ramm.


FAQs n' Bits: Michael

well .. yeah I know he said that .. but I'm still going to ask for permission first hand .. just because of my standards/morals


.::. cEll .::. 513

Feel free to use the pills for what ever you wish comercial or otherwise. They tool all of 30mins to do. If you what a .psd file , color change or a version sans text, I could do it easy, I was just setting up a new render. Just give me a holler.


Here is a reworked version without type:



The psd version is here
www.texturehunter.com/img/temp/orange_pill.psd


jstuartj



[This message has been edited by jstuartj (edited 11-24-2002).]

not a finished concept, i would like the "it's in the" bit to be contained in some way too....

--edit-> this one makes more sense:



...or number 3, even more 'asylumish':




<-tide--



[This message has been edited by reitsma (edited 11-25-2002).]

I like the concept reitsma.

I think it would probablt look better sized down to amke the text closer to the size of the text here, and with the anti-aliasing dropped.

Possibly get the color of the arrow a little closer to the asylum logo color.

just some thoughts...

question:

I'm confused here at the moment are we looking for a small icon type of FAQ button OR just a icon doesn't matter the size because what I'm working on isn't some small icon .. course it's not this large piece of work ..


.::. cEll .::. 513

slimes scaled down rocks.

Ramm - there is not preset thing we're wokring on.

I suggested keeping it smaller (88x31 range) but that was simplyl my suggestion.

Do what you want. If people like it, it'll get used.

jamie - they were all my thoughts too, after posting.
but time has not yet permitted this change.

i'll make it shortly, but if anyone would rather run with this concept, and clean it up a little, i can email the psd to them (or you can start from scratch!)

Running with the arrow theme...

edit -> or:



[This message has been edited by reitsma (edited 11-26-2002).]

making mahjqa's even less legible....

....oh, and nice effort with the filename mahjqa, it got a laugh outta me.

[This message has been edited by reitsma (edited 11-26-2002).]

I tried to shrink it down, but it didn't get much smaller...

this is the smallest I could go before it became so unreadable .. I had to add the text to the right so that you can atleast know what the fine print says

[enjoy]



[note: pill work done by jstuartj]


.::. cEll .::. 513

Love those pills, figured id give playin with em a try.
tried to keep it nice and small.
a potential i figure (need a good catch phrase though if anyone has any ideas......

Well, this isn't button size, and it doesn't even have the "it's in the FAQ" phrase in it. It's just an idea I got, and I wanted to try it out. Nothing fancy....



Hmm... the circular text looks like it could use some help. I'm working with Photoshop 5.5, and I did the text using polar coordinates. I thought I remember hearing that the new PS allows you to type text on a shape (like a circle), so if anyone takes a liking to this idea and wants to give it a shot, feel free. Or if anyone knows a better way to get text in a circle, I'm all ears.

[This message has been edited by Suho1004 (edited 11-26-2002).]

I actually like that one a great deal Suho. If I had to vote now, I'd go for that one, no question.

The only recommendation I have is the same I stated for reitsma - shrink it down until the text on the outside is 10px as is the regular text here, and lose the antialising on the text.

swavey and suho. both are great

well, suho i like the idea with the round one

-THE SPACE-

suho - that's some top work there.

it has a real 'stamp of approval' sort of thing going, makes it feel really official.

Thanks for the input, guys. I'll work on the overall size, as well as the text size. It's going to be difficult (OK, impossible) for me to have aliased (that's the proper term, right?) text using the method I used to get the text in a circle. I'm trying to figure out how to do this, but I can't really think of a way. Even if I shrink this down to use as a guide, take a line of anti-aliased text, and rotate each letter individually, I'm still going to end up with a sort of antialiasing due to the rotation, no? Also, even if I could actually type the aliased text in a circle, I'm not sure how it would look; aliased text at an angle tends to look crappy.

I will play around with it and see what I can come up with. I like the idea, but I definitely do not like the text the way it is.

Im gonna keep workin, heh, somethin will come to me in a dream or somethin...
maybe takin a trip to a real asylum would inspire.

I do like that round idea though soho, good work, keep us posted on how the text comes along

yeah, i was thinking the same thing as you when i read jamie's post.

i believe that the option of "take a line of anti-aliased text, and rotate each letter individually" is the best - it won't 'soften' up the text as other methods, and to have no anti-aliasing at all would look pretty horrid, you're right.

and as far as ps 7 tricks goes, i've only seen text warping tools, no simple text on path or shape tools.
but i could be wrong, and often am.

i look forward to a v2.0

...and here's my latest version:



oh, and bob - i like the concept behind yours, it's pretty cool.

i was also thinking of suggesting we jsut go with: <blink>FAQ!</blink>... but maybe not.


[This message has been edited by reitsma (edited 11-27-2002).]

OK, well, consider this a version 1.5, maybe. I'm just trying to nail the size at the moment...



Now, imagine that the circle text actually looks nice.

I tried a little experiment with the text. I typed in two lines of 10pt text, one aliased, one antialiased. Then I tried rotating them at various angles to see what it would look like. The aliased text looked really bad, but the antialiased text didn't look all that much better than what you see here. The problem is that aliased text looks like crap when rotated, but 10pt antialiased text looks like crap to begin with.

I'll mess around with my original text circle, maybe see if I can sharpen it up a bit or get the letter shapes to look nicer, but I don't think I'm going to try hand rotating each letter--I just don't think the possible, slight improvement would be worth it.

At any rate, any comments on size? Is this better? I probably won't be working on this much more today, as I have a pile of work in front of me that I really need to get started on.

Yep, definately looking good.
Not sure what to say about the text...I've never tried rotating aliased text actually.

Yeah, I don't think I have a choice with the text. Antialiased is probably going to have to do it.

Still, I think I can get it to look nicer than vesion 1.5 up there. I did the original text circle at a fairly large size and then shrunk it down (I tried doing it at a smaller size, but it kept coming out like crap). I wasn't too careful when I shrunk it down, though, so it didn't turn out looking the greatest. I'll spend a bit more time with it and see what I can whip up (probably tomorrow). At any rate, it's pretty much going to look like what you see there, just with nicer text (hopefully).

I would say, do it at 10 times the size, and then scale it down. The text rotation will anti-alias properly that way.

Heck, you might as well just do it in Illustrator.

Stuped I know!!

wtf: what i do??


How come when you use Illustrator and copy it over to Photoshop because
Illustrator's dumb ass can't the right character out of a font it fuc*s it all up?




[This message has been edited by Aquilo (edited 11-28-2002).]

ouch!!
anyone mind if i take a swing at the round concept?

tried the button idea...

Slime: That's what I did, but it got a little messy in the shrinking process....

Swavey: I've got no patent on the round concept, so swing away. I would like to keep working on my specific idea, though, so I would suggest waiting until I get a nicer looking version if you want to play with it. Of course, if you have something completely different in mind, go for it!

is it legible?
maybe make the "circle" look like a sphere?





edit: Suho: I'm sorry for eating your bandwith! *inserts three bandwidth nibbling slimies *



[This message has been edited by OlssonE (edited 11-29-2002).]

OK, this is the final version of my idea (or at least it's my final version). I increased the tracking to put some space between the letters so they wouldn't get squished together when I scaled the text down, and I think it looks a lot better this way. The overall size is larger than version 1.5 (but smaller than version 1) because the tracking made the letters themselves smaller when I herded them into a circle (makes sense). I think this is about as good as I'm going to get it, so I'll just hang my hat here. If anybody wants the .PSD to play with, drop me an e-mail or hit me on Q (I'll throw in the original size text circle, too, if you want it). There really isn't that much to play with, though.

Anyway, for comparison, here are the three versions:

Version 1


Version 1.5


Version 2

OlssonE: Actually, that is a bit hard to read. Maybe if the angle wasn't so sharp... but I'm also not sure about having an animated icon for the FAQ. I imagine that could get a mite tedious, not to mention the bandwidth we'd be eating up....

[Edit: OK, well the file size isn't that big, but still...]

[This message has been edited by Suho1004 (edited 11-29-2002).]

my version on the circle design, which i thought was simple yet stylish...

http://ascension.fateback.com/misc/asylum-button.gif

(cut and paste required)



[This message has been edited by sexylyon (edited 11-29-2002).]

sexylyon: Not bad. The text looks pretty good, all things considered. I noticed you chose a different font, too. I'm not sure about the bulging FAQ text, but I suppose it's a matter of taste.

Suho: Really like how you variate the size in your different versions.
I just say ver. 1.5 wow! How did you get there from ver. 1.

Maybe you could write a tutorial...... naaaah! just kidding .

That I really wanted is to eat your bandwidth with my letters...
Which letter takes the most bandwidth? I bet it's 'W'

WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW... etc etc
ps. I hope this doesn't crash doc's server.... *sorry*

[This message has been edited by OlssonE (edited 11-29-2002).]

olssonE - the only reason he has posted those different sized versions is because it's what we asked him to do.

now, let's see your version o n e.

Ok!

ver.1

ver.2

ver.3


I'm currently working on a RTFP

edit: btw like yours sexylyon!


[This message has been edited by OlssonE (edited 11-29-2002).]

I do like sexylyon's version of Suho's ideas (any chance of you dropping it into the forum so we see exactly how it looks in here - use one of the inmates sig hosting services if need be).

___________________
Emps

FAQs: Emperor

sexylyon version, hosted by me, so that we all can see it right here:




(hope that's allright with you, sexylyon. if not, just say so, and I shall take it down again)

so long,
Tyberius Prime

edit: To dumb to do ubb...

[This message has been edited by Tyberius Prime (edited 11-29-2002).]

no problem Tyberius Prime, it saves me the hassle of running around asking somebody to host it

for anyone interested, i uploaded the PSD file to http://ascension.fateback.com/misc/asylum_button.psd

i did the text/path in illustrator and exported to photoshop and then added the circles and whatnot. the FAQ part is strictly text manipulation and i originally intended to convert to path and then force fit it to the inside circle. that would have kept it from "bloating" and given a spiffier/custom effect.

however, it was late and i was tired so i just warped it to make it roughly fill the area required. as is also apparent, i didn't spend enough (ok, any) time making sure the colors were correct to the Asylum standard.

i guess that means fifty lashes with the wet noodle, right?

[This message has been edited by sexylyon (edited 11-30-2002).]

[This message has been edited by sexylyon (edited 11-30-2002).]

I realize these are probably too big and the good ol' jaggies are there but if someone more skillful wants to 'tweak' let me know and I'll make the .psd's available.
And yes....Asylum is supposed to be like that.

Nice one fraxyl.

And NoJive, really nice, love the 2nd one from the right

I'd like to see one of reitsma's arrow entries with the phrase "Have you seen the FAQ?" instead of "It's in the FAQ"

real simple one -





[This message has been edited by DL-44 (edited 11-30-2002).]

(original url: http://ascension.fateback.com/misc/asylum-button2.gif (cut n'paste required))

ok, i admit it. i'm a fan of strictly font work.

Edit TP: hosting it again at my site for convinence of viewing.



[This message has been edited by Tyberius Prime (edited 12-01-2002).]

nojive, very nice work, really

closin' this one down...

the continuation is here.... http://www.ozoneasylum.com/Forum3/HTML/003001.html


FAQs n' Bits: Michael