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Logo / slogan Voting

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Wed, 01/05/2005 - 11:53
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Ok...

Obviously It's your turn is the hands down favorite among the users for the slogan. Do any of you guys have any thing against choosing that slogan over any of the others? I think it's short, catchy and to the point. There were a couple of others I liked slightly better, but I think this one is probably the best to represent us 'out there'.

I think it would be good to emphasis the your, I.E..

It's your turn.

For the underline, I think we could do a stylized underline to make it look cool.

OK, on the the logos. Here is the voting results thus far:

Believe it or not, there was a three way tie for first. The following three logos had 14 'points' a piece.

SiskNY's:

Ensor's:

and Prophx's:

Of those three, I like Ensor's the best. The problem is my top two favorites, were this one from Hpox:

and this one from Doho:

I like them because they are both simple and are more in the banner format (To be fair, Prophx's is also in the desired format, but it looks more like a dalmation logo than a board game logo).

The whole point of this contest was to get us a new logo and tagline. But I also wanted to use them to produce BGDF business cards that users could hand out. They could use these business cards to both promote themselves as game designers and promote the website. Basically we would provide members with the template and they could add in their own name and contact information, etc.

Any thoughts on these results or anything else about the business cards?

-Michael

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Wed, 01/05/2005 - 12:16
#1
zaiga
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Logo / slogan Voting

I like the business cards idea a lot. Great idea!

About the slogan: if "It's your turn" got the most votes then I don't see a reason to choose another one. It's short and catchy, so it's fine by me.

Choosing the logos is a bit trickier. I personally think Doho's and Hpox' logos are clean, crisp and simple, which is good, but I also find them a tad boring. They look a bit too cheap.

Of the others I don't like Prophx' logo much either. I don't like the dark colors and it's a bit small and fiddly.

Ensor's logo is nice, clean and colorful, but again a bit boring. I which the letters in the hexes were a bit bigger, or bold and I don't like the fact that the text "Board Game Designers Forum" is in two different font sizes.

SiskNY's logo is very colorful and recognizable. It looks playful and it's immediately obvious that it has something to do with board gaming. I do wish the letters of "Board Game Designers Forum" were just standing up straight instead of being panned (or what do you call that Star Wars scrolling effect?). Perhaps that could be fixed?

Also, only Doho's logo has BGDF.COM in it's text, which is pretty important I think.

All things considered my vote would go to SiskNY's logo.

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Wed, 01/05/2005 - 13:49
#2
jwarrend
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Logo / slogan Voting

Re: Slogan: I didn’t particularly care for any of the choices that made it to the final voting, so I didn’t vote. (My favorite was “because Monopoly sucks”!) I don’t think “it’s your turn” is a particularly apt slogan for a designers’ forum, since it’s not clear who the “you” is -- us, the designers? “They”, the designers (where “we” are the admins)? The gaming public?

That said, if it won fair and square, go with it; it’s punchy enough. The only suggestion I’d have is to keep it separate from the logo.

I liked the idea of business cards with the BGDF logo. (I guess there could be a template here on the site or something?) I doubt I’d print such cards for myself if they said “It’s your turn” on them. So perhaps create two versions of the logo, one with, one without?

Re: Logos: SiskNY’s is hands-down the best, though I agree with zaiga that the tilted text isn’t ideal. My only concern is that it’s a bit wide, for the purposes of shrinking down if one wanted to do that (but you could lop off the text on the side, I suppose, and still have the logo). Doho’s is 2nd best in my book.

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Wed, 01/05/2005 - 14:17
#3
sedjtroll
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Logo / slogan Voting

I showed the logos to my sister when she was here the other week (her name is Renee, btw). She's a Graphic Designer and does this kind of thing for a living.

She wasn't too impressed with any of the candidates (to tell you the truth neither am I, but for different reasons).

In particular, she pointed out that the art was 'obviously clip art', which I'm not sure is a problem perse. She also didn't like the colors, and I think I agree with her there.

One thing we should decide is if we want a color logo or a B&W one. If we choose color (probably the way to go) then we should make sure it doesn't clash or anything. the pink and light blue in Doho's logo makes me think of babies and stuff (boy/girl, etc).

I'd like to look at the option of having an even wider but shorter logo... is there a standard for this 'banner format'? At my work the logo is taller than it is wide and it takes up a ton of space at the top of our calc sheets.

I'm thinking something like Ensor's logo, but modified as follows:
1. make the hexes smaller, and maybe the letters in them more bold.
2. Move the D hex over to the other side of the F hex.
3. Like zaiga said, make the text the same size.

As for the motto, I'm happy with "It's your turn," and I don't think we need to emphasize the "your" or anything. In fact, I think it's best that we don't underline or bold any part of it, I think it will look better if it's simply a statement "It's your turn."

- Seth

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Wed, 01/05/2005 - 14:20
#4
sedjtroll
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jwarrend wrote:
I don’t think “it’s your turn” is a particularly apt slogan for a designers’ forum, since it’s not clear who the “you” is

"You" is the person who is visiting the website. "It's your turn" means you get to be the designer- it's your turn to try your hand at making a game. And of course, it's directly related to games- how often during a game do you have to remind a player "Hey, it's your turn!"

I think it's a very apt slogan, and it was one of my favorites (I forget the other favorites but I htink there were 3 or 4 I really liked)

- Seth

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Wed, 01/05/2005 - 14:28
#5
phpbbadmin
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...

Gentlemen,

Great points all around. Let's have Matthew and David weigh in before we proceed further...

-Michael

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Wed, 01/05/2005 - 15:45
#6
jwarrend
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Logo / slogan Voting

Well, since Seth has proved that he'll argue about pretty much anything, let me prove that so will I!

sedjtroll wrote:
jwarrend wrote:
I don’t think “it’s your turn” is a particularly apt slogan for a designers’ forum, since it’s not clear who the “you” is

"You" is the person who is visiting the website.

This is a perfectly sensible answer; my concern was mainly that when you put in a 2nd-person reference, it's not immediately obvious who represents the 1st person and who represents the 2nd person, so different people may interpret the slogan different ways. I'm not saying it's impossible to come up with such an interpretation, just that multiple interpretations are plausible.

I think part of the confusion is that "we", the users of the site, who are ostensibly "proclaiming" the slogan's message, are ourselves the beneficiaries of the site. So in that sense, your interpretation of "it's your turn" (ie, "it's your turn to make a game") appears to put "us" in the position of talking to ourselves, which again is confusing. If the slogan was "It's our turn", I think it would make a lot more sense, although it wouldn't sound as good (and would lose the double reference that you pointed out.)

Quote:

I think it's a very apt slogan,

This proves that tastes differ. Fair enough. At any rate, I've indicated that since I didn't have a preference for any of the slogans that made the first cut, this one is as good as any other, so take my quibbling with a grain of salt...

-J

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Wed, 01/05/2005 - 19:18
#7
Scurra
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Logo / slogan Voting

Hey - who had a grammar flamewar and didn't invite me? ;-)
"It's your turn" was my #1 choice precisely because of the wonderful grammatical ambiguity it encompassed.

As for the the logos - I thought they were all pretty ordinary (tbh, I still like the original although I can see why it's not ideal.) From the shortlist, I'd have to say that a cross between SiskNY's neat graphic and Ensor's clean layout would be my choice... The point about including the ".com" bit is significant too - but either of the "hex-based" designs could have that added relatively painlessly.

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Wed, 01/05/2005 - 20:50
#8
jwarrend
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Logo / slogan Voting

Perhaps the reason for the "ordinariness" of the logos is that we're viewing this as a graphic arts project rather than an illustration project (or the entrants viewed it that way, anyway). Maybe instead we should commission an actual original drawing. That's probably the only way we'll get something distinctive like the Boardgamegeek logo, which is perhaps what you're looking for. Perhaps Scott (Starkey) or someone like that?

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Wed, 01/05/2005 - 22:31
#9
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Logo / slogan Voting

jwarrend wrote:
Perhaps the reason for the "ordinariness" of the logos is that we're viewing this as a graphic arts project rather than an illustration project (or the entrants viewed it that way, anyway). Maybe instead we should commission an actual original drawing. That's probably the only way we'll get something distinctive like the Boardgamegeek logo, which is perhaps what you're looking for. Perhaps Scott (Starkey) or someone like that?

Well to be honest I wasn't even looking for anything that good, although it would be nice. I just wanted something better than the one I banged out in an hour before I brought the site online two years ago.

Maybe a professional level logo can come later. Right now I think we need something clean and simple that will convey what we are about.

-Michael
(Still waiting on Matthew... )

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Wed, 01/26/2005 - 12:32
#10
FastLearner
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Logo / slogan Voting

Well, much of my life upheaval is over now. My beloved of 15 years and I are no longer together, and I've moved to a new home. Finally have computer access again, and poof, everything's new!

Unfortunately the logos aren't available to see right now (because of the new board), so I'm not able to pick my favorite. What I do remember from having seen them before, though, is that I didn't much care for any of them. Now unfortunately this is from the perspective of someone who already had a design in his head that he quite liked, and so the logo would have had to have been pretty good for me to like it. As a graphic designer of 16 years, though, I can still be pretty objective about it and still don't care for any of them much. I read your posts about them shortly before vanishing from the planet, and all I can remember from that is that I disagreed with most of you as to the best one. :) Fat lotta help, I know.

Obviously since I didn't get my logo into electronic form in time (or even now), that particular perspective is useless, so... if we get them back up again, I'll pick my faves and least faves, and explain why.

On the slogans, I think "It's your turn" is quite good.

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Wed, 01/26/2005 - 13:58
#11
sedjtroll
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I don't think it's too late for Fastlearner to submit a logo- I believe at the outset it was stated that the chosen logo would not necessarily be one of the entries.

I for one would like to see what FL had in mind.

- Seth

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Wed, 01/26/2005 - 14:12
#12
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Logo / slogan Voting

sedjtroll wrote:
I don't think it's too late for Fastlearner to submit a logo- I believe at the outset it was stated that the chosen logo would not necessarily be one of the entries.

I for one would like to see what FL had in mind.

- Seth

If he has something he can show us that's great. The problem is I don't think he had anything but a concept, and I'm not sure he has time to bring it to reality. Matthew?

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Wed, 01/26/2005 - 15:50
#13
FastLearner
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Now that I'm moved and all I do have some time again (hence my being here). I'll whip it together over the weekend. If for some reason I can't, let's blow it off, but I'm pretty sure that I can.

-- Matthew

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Mon, 02/14/2005 - 12:11
#14
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Logo / slogan Voting

Well I think it's safe to assume Fastlearner is MIA. I have e-mailed him about the logo but I've heard nothing back from him. My leaning is to go with either Hpox's or Doho's. Any thoughts? I understand some of you like Sisk's but to be honest, It's too busy for the business card idea.

Sound off please.
-Darke

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Mon, 02/14/2005 - 13:16
#15
Scurra
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The thing is that I like Hpox's (die and lightbulb) if we are going with "It's your turn" (plus the URL) in place of where he has the site name. The drawback there is that the full sitename would probably have to run along the bottom, which would look clumsy.

I've gone off the more complicated designs: none of them are better than the current one really. At least the die and lightbulb thing is a nice, clean idea (albeit rather at odds with the general "anti-dice" feeling of modern strategy gaming :-))

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Sun, 02/27/2005 - 00:22
#16
Brykovian
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Logo / slogan Voting

Just chiming in here a bit late ...

I do like "It's your turn" as a slogan -- with no special emphasis on any of the words -- for the multiple meanings and applications that it can be. As for Jeff's question about who the "you" is -- I think it would be anyone who has played a game and thought they might want to make their own ... in that case, it is "us" (regular site users) and it is "them" (future site users). I think it's friendly, inviting, and even a bit fun, since it can remind most folks of something that is said a number of times in almost any game that is played.

As for the logos ... none of them really grabbed me very much, so I didn't even vote for any of them. Of the ones leading in the voting, I like SiskNY's the best -- simply because of the 4 colored pawns (I'm easily entertained). If that truly screws up the design of planned items (like a business card -- cool idea!), and the best to pick from to most those items work are the last 2 pics Darke posted ... then I like the Dice & Lightbulb best -- simple and makes a point. Otherwise, I'm not overly hung-up on what the logo should be other than clean and clear -- so I'll happily go along with just about anything.

-Bryk

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Sun, 02/27/2005 - 07:51
#17
jwarrend
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Logo / slogan Voting

Sorry to be late to chime in. I can't muster much enthusiasm for any of the logos. I liked Sisk's, but if that's not acceptable, then I don't see either of the 2 you suggested being an improvement over the existing design, and my vote is for keeping the existing logo. I think the moral is that if we really want a nice looking logo, we're going to have to commission one from a pro and spend a few bucks.

On the other hand, it may be prudent just to toss a coin or whatever and pick one as the winning logo, just to demonstrate progress. A lot of things peter out around here -- the first design contest judging bailout, the wiki (although it's in progress), the online board game project, the American Hippodice, etc. Mostly, this kind of thing happens because site members don't step up to the plate. In this case, people did step up and submit entries, and vote; perhaps we should follow through and coronate a winner, if only to show that we noticed that people came through this time.

-Jeff

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Sun, 02/27/2005 - 15:16
#18
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Logo / slogan Voting

jwarrend wrote:
Sorry to be late to chime in. I can't muster much enthusiasm for any of the logos. I liked Sisk's, but if that's not acceptable, then I don't see either of the 2 you suggested being an improvement over the existing design, and my vote is for keeping the existing logo. I think the moral is that if we really want a nice looking logo, we're going to have to commission one from a pro and spend a few bucks.

On the other hand, it may be prudent just to toss a coin or whatever and pick one as the winning logo, just to demonstrate progress. A lot of things peter out around here -- the first design contest judging bailout, the wiki (although it's in progress), the online board game project, the American Hippodice, etc. Mostly, this kind of thing happens because site members don't step up to the plate. In this case, people did step up and submit entries, and vote; perhaps we should follow through and coronate a winner, if only to show that we noticed that people came through this time.

-Jeff

I agree that we need to choose one of them just because that's what we'd said we would do and I think we should follow through it. Jeff, you've definitely put your finger on one of my biggest frustrations, projects that fail because the people who had commited to those projects don't follow through as they had promised. It's a shame really, there are a lot of great things we could do to make this community better if only we had some people to spend some the time to do them. I've done just about all that my time and talents will allow unfortunately.

At any rate, my vote is for Hpox's. I think it will work for the time being. Perhaps one day we'll get lucky and have an artist login who thinks the logo is deplorable and will offer to make us a new one for gratis. =)

-Darke

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Tue, 03/01/2005 - 00:02
#19
FastLearner
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Logo / slogan Voting

I was MIA. I was in a car accident and haven't been able to spend hardly any time at the computer for the last 2.5 weeks. Sorry all.

Anyway, I didn't have time to flesh out the logos, but I figured I'd go ahead and post the initial sketches I'd worked on earlier, so I've put them on a web page. It may be obvious that I'm quite text oriented. :)

If there's anything that's remotely appealing, I can flesh something out (a bit of 3d, drop shadow, whatever).

http://www.genimuse.com/temp/bgdf/logosketches.htm

And if not, that's cool, too. Sorry for the delay. End result of the accident is that I'm ok, my only remaining problem is some back trouble that I'm getting treatments for, my car will be out of the shop in a week or so, and the other person's insurance is paying for everything.

-- Matthew

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Tue, 03/01/2005 - 02:51
#20
Zzzzz
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Well to toss in my two cents, for what its worth.

Opinions on the top three:

SiskNY : Text is a little rough as a result it would be hard to read on a business card (not to mention it might just be to big for a biz card).

Ensor : For the most part a clean logo, but it lacks some type of eye catching
detail.

Prophx : Just blah, maybe it is in need of color, but I dont know if that would even help enough.

I do like FL's version E. It might be nice to see another version of E with the .COM as another color (maybe orange). Version E to me seems the most like a real logo.

If voting for one of the top 3, I would say Ensor. Though I would highly consider FL's version E. Since it is also clean and very simple.

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Tue, 03/01/2005 - 04:06
#21
zaiga
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I like Matthew's logo E as well. The B&W logo B could be used in places where color isn't appropriate or simply not possible.

As I said before, of the other logos I like SiskNY's one best, and I think we should declare that one as the winner of the contest. It would not fit on the business card, but then again, that was never the aim of the contest - the contestants didn't even know that the logo should fit on a business card! - so I think it is unfair to disqualify a logo because of that.

Here's my proposal: declare Sisk's logo as the winner of the contest and put it on the website, just to show that we finally managed to reach a decision. Print the business cards with Matthew's logo E (or B if you want it B&W) on the business cards. Then, in a few months time, replace Sisk's logo on the website with the business card logo, to make things uniform again.

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Tue, 03/01/2005 - 04:52
#22
sedjtroll
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My only concern with Matthew's logos is that they are the wrong aspect ratio for a business card logo, or in my opinion for a website logo. The company I work for has the same problem, our logo is taller than it is wide. The calc sheets have the logo at the top, and the header is just WAY too big. It's an enormous waste of space. In this case we're not printing pages of paper, so in that respect it's not a problem, but I'd still recommend a more banner style logo for any website.

Matthew's (c) is more business card shaped, so I like it better for that then his others, but it's still a little too tall for my liking. Imagine the big BGDF from Matthew's (c) for example, in one line instead of stacked, and in black, then imagine the .COM part superimposed but in white and right justified (it's already about the right size)... how do you think that would look?

- Seth

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Tue, 03/01/2005 - 07:19
#23
zaiga
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Logo / slogan Voting

Let's separate the website logo issue from the business card logo issue for a moment.

Sometime ago Darkehorse started a contest for a new website logo and a new slogan. It's about time we name a winner. Actually, it's long overdue. We can argue for ages which logo should win, but I think we should just pick one and go with it. The general sentiment for best website logo seems to be either Sisk's or Ensor's, so I think Darke, as the site's big Kahuna, should decide on one of those two, slap the "It's your turn" slogan on it and put it up on the website. It's not like any of those logos are much worse than the current one anyway. That way we kept our end of the bargain, we made one guy really happy and we can move on to other things.

In my eyes the business card logo is a different matter, because it's a bit more of an official thing. I say we let Matthew design a nice logo specifically for the business card. After seeing the first rough drafts I'm sure Matthew can come up with something great. Perhaps we could use that logo later as the website logo as well, but that is something for the future.

I also want to say that I'm not fond of this democratic way of choosing a logo. It simply takes too much time, we're talking in circles, and the end result is not significantly better, perhaps even worse, than a slogan/logo chosen in a more technocratic way. In other words, just let one or two guys who know what they are talking about choose whatever they think is best, which would save a lot of time and useless discussion.

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Tue, 03/01/2005 - 09:29
#24
Brykovian
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First -- wb FL ... sorry to hear about the car wreck -- hope your recovery goes smoothly.

Second -- I had an idea this morning about creating a "best combination" from the logos we like. What about taking a single ball-pawn-on-a-hex from Sisk's graphic, placing a lightbulb above its "head" (stolen from hpox's graphic) and placing it to the left of FL's example E text?

I agree with zaiga in that a "winner" should be announced, even if it's not the logo used ...

-Bryk

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Tue, 03/01/2005 - 13:31
#25
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Logo / slogan Voting

zaiga wrote:

I also want to say that I'm not fond of this democratic way of choosing a logo. It simply takes too much time, we're talking in circles, and the end result is not significantly better, perhaps even worse, than a slogan/logo chosen in a more technocratic way. In other words, just let one or two guys who know what they are talking about choose whatever they think is best, which would save a lot of time and useless discussion.

Ok that's fine. Hpox's is officially the winner then.

-Darke

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Tue, 03/01/2005 - 14:31
#26
zaiga
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Darkehorse wrote:
Ok that's fine. Hpox's is officially the winner then.

That's great! I hope you can get it on the website very soon!

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Tue, 03/01/2005 - 15:23
#27
Zzzzz
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zaiga wrote:
Darkehorse wrote:
Ok that's fine. Hpox's is officially the winner then.

That's great! I hope you can get it on the website very soon!

Fun fun fun!

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Tue, 03/01/2005 - 15:49
#28
FastLearner
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I'll mock up my concept of a busines card this evening.

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Tue, 03/01/2005 - 16:38
#29
phpbbadmin
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Ok I've just e-mailed Hpox to add the tag line and bgdf.com somewhere to the logo he made. As soon as he mails it to me I will put it online.

-Michael

P.S. Thanks fast for working on the Business Card thingy.

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Tue, 03/01/2005 - 20:38
#30
sedjtroll
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Horray! I agree with Zaiga, and I'm happy we've chosen a winner. I'm sorry I wasn't more decided myself on the issue.

- Seth

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