A Century of Logos

 

Over the time I’ve had this website I have designed several dozen logos for the top there, as well as done other artistic type things from time to time.  This is a gallery of such images with a bit of commentary as well.  Enjoy!

 

The Early Days

 

This was the first logo (I think), and it’s not that inspiring in my mind. 

 

 

The following two were drafts for a second logo – the butterfly was downloaded from Google, and is not my design.  Gleefully ripped off.  I don’t think I actually used the first one. 

 

 

 

This is more of a classic design, and stayed up for quite a long time. 

 

 

This one relates back to the lamp pictures, which will have their own gallery, so look for commentary there.  But it’s not bad looking. 

 

 

This is of course our commentary button.  I’ve never felt the slightest urge to change this one – just really like the way it looks.  It’s taken from a performance of Lysistrata up on the capital steps in my town. 

 

 

I am not taking credit for the Liberal Coalition logo – I can’t say who designed it for fear of getting it wrong, but they did a bang up job.  I will take credit for the two “alterations” below – I think the Blue Green one actually appeared on the site. 

 

 

 

 

The Glut

 

Sometime last year I got the idea that it would be fun to update the look of the website on a weekly basis and have new logo’s constantly.  It proved a doable idea.  Naturally this required a glut of logos, most of which were done over a fairly short period of time.   The first 8 or 9 were done on the same day, and frankly it shows. 

 

I kind of like this one for sentimental reasons, but it’s not all that exciting. 

 

 

I actually was a little hesitant to use this one, because of the military connotations.  The first draft had it in stark yellow and red, which was a bit more striking.  I eventually softened it to these colors.  This is one that Space Lobster and McIckleson quite like.  Incidentally the picture for this one, the one above and many of them really comes from a collection at the Library of Congress Website, entitled Panoramic Photographs - Taking the Long View, 1851-1991.  Really great for browsing. 

 

 

I also really like this one which was sort of an accident. 

 

 

This one on the other hand used very similar techniques to the one above, but didn’t turn out nearly as creatively.  There’s a lesson there about trying to replicate an accident.  I don’t know if I’ve actually used it or not. 

 

 

This is a very simple one – just a panoramic picture made a little bit more warm, squished and with words at the tope.  I like that font though. 

 

 

This was a surprisingly difficult one for such a simple effect at the end.  If you look at the left side of the picture you can get an idea of what sort of picture I started with. 

 

 

I have a weird affection for this one – partially because of the strong font, and partially because it kind of has a 1950s/1960s futuristic look to it.  Jagged. 

 

 

Everybody likes ducks right?  Actually this would be a good logo for a website called “A Parliament of Ducks.”

 

 

I really like this one too – just has a really 1950s/1960s futuristic feel to it.  I liked it enough to use it even though there wasn’t room for the three exclamation points. 

 

 

This is somewhat of a stark visual – the background is a poster from the WPA, I believe. 

 

 

This is also originally a WPA poster, cut to fit today’s lifestyle.  I like the font here too, actually. 

 

 

A weird one redeemed by a cool font.  It’s kind of dark looking.

 

 

I like everything about this logo – the background the font.  It’s very soothing.   Of course you will note that the name is different.  After the election last year I was a bit down (to put it mildly), and so I decided to take a week off from being Make Me a Commentator!!!.  Instead for a week we were Legal Daisy Spacing (name suggested by Random Goblin); which was fun enough.  It was shortly after that that I lost control of the blog – although that happened behind the scenes of course.  The “new” management didn’t really affect the visible aspects of the blog until much later.   

 

 

I hate this one – but it was done quickly. 

 

 

I’m not much fonder of this one – the font is good, but it’s still kind of dull.  I’m running out of ideas. 

 

 

This one partially redeems me – I like the circles and the kind of computer look.  What’s interesting is considering what sort of blog this logo would be attached to (ignoring the title and the fact that you know what kind of blog it is).  Just based on the design scheme what sort of blog should this be?  Then do the same experiment with Legal Daisy Spacing logo above.  Or the one with the jelly fish on it.

 

 

Gosh this looks familiar.  I think I tweaked the shading a bit, but it’s still kind of dull. 

 

 

This isn’t very creative but it looks ok.  I think mostly I loved that boat picture and wanted to do something with it, but couldn’t figure out a way to get the text in with such a busy background.  So I did the standard compromise.  I’m not sure I’ve actually used it, the words are hard to read. 

 

 

Oh how I hate this one.  It was an attempt at a Christmas Logo gone horribly wrong.  I used it anyway. 

 

 

The very first appearance of the Monster!  This logo was suggested by Random Goblin; and we will cover his involvement down below.

 

 

I kind of like this one – kind of Tron Themed. 

 

 

Outside Influence

 

About this time I had a friend who was also experimenting with Paint Shop – so I enlisted her help in creating logos (as my wells of creativity had run a bit dry.   I don’t have as much commentary about these, though – but they are very nice looking I think. 

 

 

 

 

A very nice one here – it appeared on the blog for a little spell, actually. 

 

 

 

Once Random Goblin saw that we accepting submissions he sent in this one which involved the monster.  The logo we couldn’t use due to it’s violent message, but the Monster we liked and kept.  And kept some more.  And now he runs this website.  It’s a funny old world sometimes. 

 

 

The New Age

 

Which brings us to the most recent period in the sites history – as you all know I lost control of this website back in late June, and it was handed over to Cheery Jetson and Grumbly Muffin for the duration (with McIckleson and later Space Lobster).  Since then, the Monster cleared matters up and assumed control of the website – and now we all work for him, more or less.  While the website was under new management they adopted a new format, which we have since abandoned because it did not allow for linking to individual posts.  The new format encouraged larger logos and some really creative work was done, mostly by Cheery. 

 

I really like this one (by Cheery) – it combines a lot of cool things.  I particularly like how the lettering kind of shades its way in.

 

 

This one is perhaps a bit dark, but it’s kind of cool looking too.

 

 

This is another Cheery one and it’s wonderful – very colorful. 

 

 

This one I did – actually it was done very quickly.  I had already done the fuzzy spiral, so just pasted it in and put the title to the left.

 

 

The following two titles were designed by Cheery, but with the return to the old format I don’t know if we will get to use them in this form.  We will likely have to trim just a little bit – but we will use them because they are very nice.  The bottom one is mine, and I kind of like it, mainly because it’s a little different.  But the title is hard to read.  

 

 

 

 

This logo was used for a week when the Monster took over.  He considered leaving the title of the blog Monster Be Commentator!!! But we talked him out of it. 

 

 

And this is what we have up for our first week back to the old system, designed by my friend who did the logos above.   

 

 

And that brings us to the end of our little journey.  For those of you who feel this was a little self indulgent, well, consider what you paid for it and go in peace!