I think it works. Especially for the wedding of a couple with the right initials!

Seriously:
Try making the bottom of the stem taper thin.

hhp

Do you mean sort of daggery, like so?

Maybe, yeah. Or not so sharp.
You'd have to close in the sides though.

hhp

I like it, Colin!
Could be a king's crown as well.

Andrew

BTW, last one gets disturbing, like a spike through the heart.

The last one is the angsty goth version. teehee

I was thinking exactly the same thing, Chris.

Colin, about your first time: didnt you design your monogram icon?

Ehh... It's cut together from Scanjam's Profundis. All I did was cut it together and tweak a little.

oh...

(newb blush)

Never saw Profundis before.

Colin,

1. the monogram - is for you/fun? work?

2. the dagger is the main element. that is your attitude, business style?

3. most important thing about logo: believable & trustworthy.


David Hamuel

It's for fun mostly. Just personal. Might throw it on some stationary or something, use it on my resume, whatever. I also have these romantic ideas of getting a wax seal with it on there, but I don't give paper to people.

Tweaked the stem a bit to continue the curve from the finial of the h. (That's probably the wrong term. What's correct here?)

Hi Colin,

why not take out the serif on the H? Than it looks even more like a heart.
The stem of the H in the last post if fine to me. You can optically connetc the right leg of the H to that stem.

Ren

I don't really care about the heart thing coming through much. It was just the idea that sparked the design.

I have been tweaking the serif a bit, and it works better when it's less prominent.

(p.s. Thanks for giving me the right term. I am not good with vocabulary.)

Top: original
Middle: less prominent serif
Bottom: no serif

Well, this isn't going to work with that server error.

You can see the image here:
http://www.newelement.org/colin/monogram/ch-uncial-20030806-serifvars.gif

Another variation:



http://newelement.org/colin/monogram/ch-uncial-20030806-newserifs.gif

Which direction looks most promising?

...i couldn't resist
the temptation, so i tried this:

...i couldn't resist
the temptation, so i tried this:

Oh, I think that's the one. I like that!

I like the C. I really couldn't figure out to do with the terminal and finial.

I think taking the foot of the H takes away a lot of the Celtic-ness (since you can't really do anything too Celtic with the C), which is something I was going for.

Um, yeah...the whole point of posting here is to get ideas and Chris had a pretty damn good one.

If you're going to accuse him of usurping you'll have to accuse Tiffany as well, considering she contributed ideas too.

Totally different. What would you do if you were in a design crit and your prof. said, "I don't like that. I have an idea. Give it to me and I'll do it for you." It's okay to give verbal descriptions or even sketches to illustrate, but to fully execute the idea kind of crosses the line between teaching and doing. To be honest, it made me feel like •••• when I came in here and saw that, then saw you and Tiff raving over it, I thought, "Well, I didn't do that. It's not mine anymore, it's Christos'." Instead of giving me a spark of an idea to go out and try to make it better, it's made me not want to touch it anymore. I know other people can do it better, but you should be able to tell from my first post that I really wanted to do this myself, and just get input from others to guide me along, not to have other people take my stuff and do it for me. I know a lot of you guys are art school crit hardened, but does this really need to be that hard core?

By the way, the image Tiffany posted was an image I created, but wasn't able to post because of technical issues. Click the link in my post above it.

I think Christos was merely following what appeared to be
Tiffany's lead, and I'm guessing that he did not read Joe's
admonition to Let People Do Their Own Work.

>>It's often merely a chance to prove your own skills.

Because this has happened quite a bit, I think there's an
opportunity to come up with an area of Typophile where
people can make explorations with logos/design in the
spirit of fun and learning.


Kind of like a Typophile Playground (TP).
The term playground has actually become quite
shopworn recently, so a better name is out there
(league of lecherous logophiles). (logo lounge is taken already).

Here's one way it could work:

1) On a weekly basis, a moderator (Tiffany or Joe maybe?)
posts a new description. This responsibility could revolve.
2) The description gives the logophiles all the information
needed to draw a mark. If more information is needed,
simpy ask for more information.
3) People draw logos/marks and post them.
4) It's not a critique section, just a free-posting section.
5) No more breaking into another Critique with the
I Couldn't Help Myself excuse.
6) People who are looking to improve skills in this area
and who want feedback or critique could ask
for it offline or through the Typophile message system.
7) This shouldn't be viewed as spec work because
there is no client. It's more a chance to get better by doing,
to try new things, to have fun.
8) Colin, it was nice meeting you at TypeCon and I hope
that the location of this post (in the middle of your critique)
doesn't elicit more red dots.
It seemed like a good time to mention this.
9) This surely can be refined. Why I'm awake
this early, I'm not quite sure.

bj

1) Don't be so sensitive.
2) Nothing is ever totally somebody's.

hhp

Colin, what Chris did was offer you a sketch. Sure he probably drew it in illustrator and made it look nice, but it's still no different than a rough sketch made on paper.

So he didn't just write down a few ideas, big deal, it probably wouldn't've been very easy to explain, so he did the next best thing.

The original idea, the one Chris' version is based on is still yours. For what he did to make you feel like crap is, IMO, a stupid response. You can still choose to incorporate his ideas or disregard them because all he gave you was a sketch. A well rendered sketch, but a sketch nonetheless.

I can only speak for myself, but I believe the reason that Tiffany and I like it was because it is still taking the spirit of the original design while giving it a new direction, something that hasn't really been done yet. Every sample so far has looked almost exactly the same with just simple changes, whereas Chris' changes were radical compared to the design as a whole yet still keeping the same spirit.

Chris was making his suggestion just like everyone else, only his was visual and not written. If you don't want suggestions, no matter how they're made or what their content, you should not ask for help.

You can still do the design yourself. What Chris gave you is input on possible ways to execute it. He only "did it for you" if you decide to use his version lock, stock, and barrel.

I'm sorry for the confusion, I thought tiffany had submitted ideas, my error.

And for the record, yes, my teachers have said they didn't like my stuff and have given me completely new ideas. I usually just ignored them and did my own thing anyway.

Hrant:
1) Sometimes that's the best way to make a point.
2) You talk a lot about ethics. You should know that although this may be true, sometimes one should refrain from taking and modifying/reworking something.

Colin:
1) That's a good point (in turn).
2) I agree - we just have different measures.

hhp

And don't forget the best design is a usually a group effort.

I understand taking a lot of ownership in something, working hard at it, really coming up with something and then fealing a little defeated in the end with the Art Director tweaks a few things and, when all said and done, *does* improve the final piece.

But realize that's what art directors (and design colleagues) do. I think you could take any logo posted in here Colin and honestly and proudly say it is yours. You came up with the concept, you slaved over it, and, as always, a few outside perspectives were able to tweak it a bit and 'take it over the top'.

The best design firm I ever worked in was one where EVERYTHING was group design. In the end, it made for easier, faster work, less egos, and ultimately, happier clients and designers.

So, I guess I'd say beggers shouldn't be choosers. When you post in a forum for a critique, expect anything and everything. Consider anything posted as voluteered food for thought. Digest what you want, spit out the rest, and don't dwell on it too much. ;o)

And, nice monogram!

I get a generic 500 Internal Server Error. It happens off and on, both when I post images and when I don't post them.

Hello everybody

i didn't open the tread since my last post,
so i felt preety shocked when i opened
the thread today.

First of all i feel sorry for what feelings
my post caused to Colin. To be sincere,
when i sent my post i didn't think much
of what could cause, so i guess i took
a lesson today.

I don't know if the reaction would be
the same if my attachment would be
a scanned rough scetch and i am sure
that it would de different if my advice
would be just verbal (but then you have
the agony if you are understood).

For sure the idea belongs (if we could use
this verb for ideas) to Colin

No problem. Time is a good healer.

collin - i get that error too

I picked this back up again, incorporating some of the ideas from Christos' version, including things from his C and a bit of subtle asymmetry (though mine is way more subtle). (I admit I overreacted a bit, sorry.) I fixed a lot of the problems with the C (especially the finial and terminal). I haven't really touched the H. I still can't figure out how I want the top serif.

Grrrr...

Here it is... Maybe someone who doesn't get 500 errors can inline it for me.

The "h" is overpowering the "c" way too much.

hhp

lovely. collin - maybe now that you've added so many 'features' to the logo, its time to drop some off and to simplify it a tad? if you think Hrant's comment is valuable (which i do), you could disarm the H.

I tried it without the arm. It really takes away a lot. I did flatten out the curve at the bottom of the C so the point is less sharp. I don't see how there are too many "features", though. Disarming the H really takes away a lot of the character of the logo, which is supposed to be somewhat celtic looking. I assume it'd be better to take away from the H rather than add to the C, but at this point I feel it's at the bare minimum of what I want.


Anyway, I'll let it sit for a while again. For now, how am I doing with the B

Regarding your beziers:
A- Try making that BCP-handle vertical instead of adding a new drawing point. The way it is, a new point is necessary indeed.
B- Keep it. It's needed.

Regarding your monogram. Maybe you could try narrowing the "h" or widening the "c" (or both)?

What Eduardo said.

hhp

After I posted this, I decided to widen the C, open the counter to the H a bit, and open the spacing a bit. Hopefully this will fix the issue of the dominant H that Hrant brought up.

Thanks for all the help so far.

Let's see if I can post this image without getting a 500 error now that my web host is down.

I'm just going to stop trying. The good news is that my web host is back up.

I opened things up and widened the C.

Heh, just for fun (I'm really pathetic if you can't tell), I'm using the Project Gutenburg e-text of P&P and designing a book.

Clever Ligature as well. I think you should pursue this, definitely.

My try

I'd pick the top one. Make sure to look at it in small sizes.
I bet the larger serif works best.

I like the subtle assymetry in this one. assymetry is _nice_!

i'd take Colin's 'h' over Christos' try.
But I do like where he's going with the new 'c'.

BTW: I'm sure Christos' intentions are good, but I think his
post is an example of a common problem with the critique
forums. Single-handedly overhauling someone's design
is rarely the best way to teach someone. It's often merely a
chance to prove your own skills - completely self-
centered and not useful to the original poster. Colin was
clear from his original post that he wanted this monogram
to be a learning experience - let's add to that experience,
not usurp it.