Yeah, the one they chose is crappy.
The "f" doesn't even slant the right amount to fit in with the radiating bars.

But you forgot the cardinal rule: Thou shalt not dissent. It confuses the sheep, you see.

hhp

Jesus... what a stinking logo. While I'm not sure on your g, myself, it is all in all a rather nice and sleek design, while their version is so just much crapola.

ohh, I love that 'g'. With Faceplat sans you either love that lowercase g, or you hate it. Thats what I have found. ;)

Their logo suffers a lot because the strokes coming out are all distorted by the stretching. You can tell it was mechanically obliqued and stretched because of how some of the strokes are thicker than others. Pretty amateur mistake, that.

T

Kyle, you learned a valuable lesson. Remember, A diplomat is a person who can tell you to go to hell and make you look forward to the trip. The design that won wasn't based on its merits, it was based on your diplomancy.

Not sure how how you see diplomacy fitting into this? I never set out to be a diplomat. Now, if thid were a paying client, that is a completly different story.

hildebrant.

Life is diplomacy, I can walk into a store where I've been kind plesent and they will have my order before I can order it. I bicycle race and I can control the field because I can negotiate with the other riders, if I just tried to out mustle them I wouldn't have a chance. I got a win for a friend earlier in the year by doing that. I asked other friends to not chase him on a critical lap in a points race.

Kyle,

It obvious that your logo is superior to that which was chosen and that the decision was blantanty political and most likely related to your turning down the 'dink's' application.

A lesson learned form Paula Sher in her recent book Make It Bigger: good design never emerges from bad relations.

BTW, what typeface did you use?

-t

I'm a member of that user group, and I just discovered this thread. Just so the record is straight:

1) The winning logo was chosen by a group vote. It had nothing to do with diplomacy.
2) The "dink" Kyle refers to happens to be a respected Flash developer. Aside from running the user group, he wrote a book on Flash basics for O'Reilly (which will be on shelves soon), tech edited several others, writes articles on Flash for InformIT.com, and works at KnowledgeNet, a very reputable eLearning company.
3) The manager of the group never touched the graphics for the group's web site. Everything on the site was done by group members who volunteered their time and energy.
4) As I recall, Kyle's removal from the group was the result of several malicious posts that both insulted group members and had no purpose other than to slam Macromedia. The posts were neither constructive nor useful for anyone but Kyle. The group manager received several complaints about Kyle's posts from group members. The manager then replied to Kyle on the list with the utmost diplomacy. Kyle's attitude was childish at best. The group manager acted on behalf of the group, and we applaud his efforts.

Kyle, the group has done a lot of good for a lot of people. You got yourself kicked off the list. And that's no reason to publically insult anyone but yourself.

your logo is still better.

I like the logo they chose, although it is rough around the corners. I like the one they chose because it fits a 'user group' attitude, and the other looks like it's more for an event or award show. There's another factor I think is probably going on: these guys aren't designers, and they don't want to have a logo they can't use loosely. Do you really think these guys could follow through with your identity across an entire site? Its better to leave superior design for larger projects where you can manage more details across all the collateral. Have a look at their Web site.. their logo fits better with what they are comfortable, thus I think it's better. That's a hard lesson I think a lot of logo designers need to learn.

"1) The winning logo was chosen by a group vote."

Which ALWAYS results in the worst possible logo being chosen.

Kyle, you should have known better on this one. ;o)

Isn't saying 'Flash and Multimedia' kind of like saying 'Cars and Vehicles'?

The logo they did choose is just a rip off of MM's product packaging.

No doubt about it: the logo they chose is pretty awful. I hate that We-want-to-get-across-that-we-deal-with-Flash-so-what-can-we-do-with-the-Flash-program-icon-Look.

Anyway, it's far more interesting that this thread revelals an interesting twist to your story, an über-moral, if you will: There is inifintely more to be gained in this life from good public relations than there is from talking bad about other people in public forums...

The only moral I'm learning from this thread is how cynical and inward some designers can be.

Good PR is important, but sometimes you just gotta say what you think. And we (as humans) tend to frown upon that for some reason.

Granted, ranting while drunk in public forums probably isn't a good idea to begin with. ;o)

> Good PR is important, but sometimes you just gotta say what you think.

Most definitely - but only face to face with the people concerned. Public (not to mention drunk) ranting about other people WILL, nay, MUST backfire and rightly so.