Aloe Studios

Comments, Quips & Protestations

1. 1 June 15, 2008 8:50 pm Mark Aplet

   Hello Andy, I don’t believe we have meet yet but I will be attending the web group meeting this coming week so I thought I would do some research and found your blog. I hope you don’t mind that I give you some feedback. Feel free to tell me to bugger off if you like :)

   In your previous post you mention that leaves are all to common and you asked for feedback. This is probably coming too late, and what you have is good. If I may through a wrench into your creative process, you may consider an abstracted cactus or cactus bloom. It may be too literal as aloe comes from a cactus, but I think the latitude that you have with it would be tremendous. I can see many possibilities with it.

   One tiny issue I see with your design. Though fine for the web, it may not print very well on a business card or letterhead. When reduced to about 1 inch or so your company name pretty much disappears. Especially with the light fade on the top of the letters. That would be difficult to hold open on a press.

   Again, as a web logo it looks very pleasing, especially the second one. :)

   See you on Tuesday!

2. 2 June 17, 2008 10:37 am Andy Ford

   @Mark
   Thanks for your feedback!
   I realized that my original post wasn’t entirely clear the first time so I added “(above)” and “(below)” to further distinguish the new logo (top) from the old logo (bottom).

   My real strengths lie in XHTML and CSS . I’m an ‘okay’ designer at best, and even worse with logo design!

   The cactus bloom idea is one I explored, but came back to the plant form. I’ve received some really detailed and fantastic advice from the very talented Richard Benson of MooseDesign on how I can improve the logo mark and make it family with the text much better (among many other things).

   Your comments regarding the printer friendliness (or lack thereof) of the bottom design (the old one) are precisely why I moved to flat colors. The old design is riddled with logo design cardinal sins especially the use of gradients and transparency!

   So for now the new logo (the top one!) is still a rough draft, but when it’s finalized should look fairly similar in some ways

3. 3 June 18, 2008 8:55 am Mark Aplet

   Hey Andy, the clarification helps for sure. I was under the impression they were both options that you were tossing around and looking for feedback :) The top one is more printer friendly for sure. I personally like the colors on the second one more than the first. But that is just a personal taste :)

   I took a moment to rework your logo with a different color before I posted this back to you. I wanted to explore a color variation. Bare in mind, I only spent 10-15 minutes so don’t flame me just yet :) I wanted to show what your logo may look like with a slightly different color theme. I also did a real quick one with a different font. I know you did not ask for this, but you asked for opinions and I’m easily excitable :)

   BTW: Thanks for taking the reins at the meeting last night. I stayed till midnight just to shoot the breeze. :)

4. 4 June 18, 2008 8:57 am Mark Aplet

   humm… guess html is not allowed in posts. here is a link instead….

   http://visual28.com/assets/content/general/aloestudio.png