I'm not in love with the black stroke its bulky. It has that techno, trendy eurostyle look that is boring now. Please look at this book "Fresh Styles for web designers" by curt cloninger, published by new riders. Try going back to pencil and paper and try to express your individual style. Break the mold!

i totally argree Daniel, I'm not loving it much aswell. been playin about for the last couple of hours and this is the result: (based on some of the chars Scott did in the 'Spunk' thread. I'm not really liking this one much though, just trying to get something going really. Thinking about a new domain now, like the word but cant seem to do alot with it!!

Mike:

I think "optonica" is a great word. Especially if you're dealing with a lot of photography. I think the style of the type goes well with the title, but it does need more work (BTW, I like the unicase "A"). The "p" looks a little large (horizontal) and the "o"s would be difficult to make out if I didn't know what the word was

the "c-o" combo is bothering me the most also... and i do find it rare when i like how this style of type is executed.

if you go this route, i don't think you really need the left side of the "o's" as i've shown. i've also shortened the descender on the p.



i think the "o's" would need to be wider and transitions between letters need some help.

Mike what you need to make optonica work is a statement or phrase under it that explains it. As Scott said it works if you are dealing with alot of photography. It is currently in a vaccume when on its own.

I'm starting to dig this. I think your own analysis is correct. Also, unless you like the hard bends in the

Thanks guys, will work through these ideas today.

ok, here are some rough odds and ends that are trying to develope this further:
Daniel, I take you point about a tag line, its gonna be my portfolio site and (sorry) is not really anything to do with photos, just sites i've done. Anyway, let me know what you all think, am i going in the right direction?

my initial reaction is that its almost becoming two seperate words opto and nica - perhaps someone could suggest how to cheer up the nica (err-hmm).

5{ry interesting. This last batch says photography more than before. It may just be exclusively my personal environment growing up (70's), but these concepts with the horizontal lines specifically make me think of a mid-late 70's photography/camera company. Don't ask me

in true Monty Python style:


any thoughts?

in true Monty Python style:


any thoughts?

more workings:

I like those new proposals, Mike, but I am afraid the sign (OP I guess) is too heavy for that very fragile font below it. No.3 makes me think - maybe you could put just a name Optonica as it is designed in that No.3 suggestion. Even more, the number 3 which you have put there just to mark the suggestion number actually works great with a word. Maybe you could rename your site into "3optonica" It could have a nice pronountiation. Or maybe you could replace 3 by something else keeping this kind of composition.

In case you would like to continue development on OP sign, you should reconsider the position of P in that elipse. The relationship between the two elements works too disturbing for my eye. There must be something wrong with P's left upper corner and its relationship to the bypassing curve. Another disturbing section might be the end of the O curve under P's on the right side. For me the curve at this point gets too thick comparing to how much thinner it is at the top of the sign.

Hi Dragnim,

v. 1-10: I'm seeing the Minolta effect myself, but it's not necessarily bothering me. The whole series does have kind of a '70s roller rink feel to it, tho. 6-10, with the 'o' connected to the 't' at the bottom, don't read. The 'ot' ligature looks like a 'd'. Also, the 't' seems way too tall on all of them. Of these, 3 is my favorite. The interior circles on the 'o's are producing some interesting closure, and they're light enough not to create blotches like they do when they're solid.

On the last group I think you may be off on the wrong track. I'm not sure why 'op' should be emphasized--it doesn't serve as initials or anything. As well, it makes me think of the OP (Ocean Pacific) sportswear brand that was oh-so-hip in the U.S. in the mid-'80s. Dunno if that brand made it over to the UK, tho, so you may not have to worry about that association. As well, that particular teal/green/whatever doesn't work for me with the greys. Too similar in value, not enough saturation.

I think Matjaz may be on to something with his recommendation that you use just the 'optonica' type from the last round. It has stark sort of feel to it that I'm liking.

As a general matter, given that you're using a made-up word you should probably try to keep the type fairly legible. With 'real' words, you can sometimes get away with funkier character shapes because people already know what the character should be from context.

I'm probably long overdue, but in your Nov 26 post you gave a bunch of iterations and some of the horizontal lines seemed to give a blur or haze. I'm assuming this is intentional, but I think you can represent this by slightly blurring the left and right sides of the dot in the lc "i". The screen resolution already makes the dot blurry, hence the idea.