Working on a High School Identity

[AnythingChicago]

That Obama is good. Wow!

[lightning25]

I like the look of the Obama one, but..well...I don't want to start an argument, so I won't say it.

[Funkatron101]

I like the alternate. I think some of the lines could be thickened up a bit.

As far as the Obama logo. Very nice start. I hope you use the same techniques for the primary.

[creativelysain]

Your alternate logo is a good start, but could be simplified drastically. Reduce the feathers to have far fewer edges, try to use 1 or 2 curves to create the feather shapes. Some of your line thicknesses are off, just make them all consistent, maybe thicken them slightly. The round part of the dreamcatcher needs to be simplified. You need to find a way to imply that it is a dreamcatcher without have so many lines & outlines intertwined. You can use shapes to force the viewer into an optical illusion, to show what objects are without drawing the actual object, if that makes sense. Use highlights and reflections instead of drawing the whole thing.

I've attached kind of what I mean:

I like the direction overall, it just needs more refining and in my opinion, you can never be too simple. Your Obama is really nice. There's also some line inconsistency in there, but overall its a pretty good illustration. Keep up the solid work.

[CAB]

Well I've been working on faces some more, and I decided to go in a completely different direction. The reference photo I was using originally (this statue) just wasn't working and I didn't think it was the right way to go for this logo. So I went to something similar to our current logo, which is a side profile of an indian in a head dress. It is based off this picture of Chief Standing Bear, the leader of the Ponca tribe.

C&C pretty please.

And creativelysain, that looks much better! I knew something was off, I just used way too much detail on the feathers. If you don't mind I'll probably base my next update off of that.

[creativelysain]

That's perfectly fine, it's why I did it, maybe to get you on the right path or some inspiration to go by.

[Cola]

The head profile is a bit too wide at the moment. It would also help in losing some of the large areas of negative space. You could also use creativelysain's advice in the indian head by reducing the sharp edges a lot (especially in the face), and use more curves to simplify the design. Right now it is kind of busy and everything looks squishy and lost in there.

[creativelysain]

A couple of thoughts on the head idea. I'll be as to the point as I can. First off, lose the outline and the gray/white tones, work with black and white only, add color later. Put the outline in when you are closer to having a finished product. Don't think of it as a logo yet, it's just an idea. It'll become a logo when it conveys exactly what you want it to, and you are satisfied.

The feathers I feel weigh the idea too much to the left, with so much white space in them, and so little white on the right. You don't have to draw every feather to imply that there are feathers there. A couple will suffice, or however many you think are necessary to get the point across to the viewer. The last few feathers on the bottom left are a little rushed I feel, don't force them in there if they don't fit. Use your reference picture as a guide, not an exact template. Feel your idea out, don't restrict yourself too much and have some artistic freedom.

The face needs some simplifying and unison. I feel like some shapes aren't there for a purpose. Try to get each shape to flow with the next, and help them all create your image working together. No single artistic element should outweigh another imo.

Sorry, saying too much haha, just let the idea grow a bit, play with it, tweak hundreds of times, then do something else for a day and come back to it. You'll see stuff you missed the first go 'round.

Hope this helps

[CAB]

Thanks for the help man, too many times people just say "Awesome!" or "Need stripes" and stuff along those lines. I'm happy that some people actually give criticism. This is nowhere close to the finished product, I'll just tweak it like you said and simplify and try to make this as good as it can be.

[Buster]

After a long break from this, I decided to start working on it again yesterday. I just sketched it out and simplified it a lot. Now that I look back, my first attempts were far too complicated. I worked on the feather, which is now facing the opposite direction so it doesn't look so much like a horn. I got rid of the necklace and other details on the hair and face that were cluttering the logo. I also added a wordmark to the bottom rather than the circle. Tell me what you think!

If anybody's wondering the wordmark is the Timberwolves font.

Much better. My one suggestion from the original was going to be change that feather's angle to face back like this.

[Funkatron101]

Some suggestions:

1. Move the neck line back a bit.

2. Soften the angles a bit on the face and head.

3. Add some subtle hair definition and perhaps have it flow into the headdress. This will help make the bottom portion of the logo look more uniform.

Overall it is looking much improved over the previous logos.

[missouri tigers]

Something about the bridge of the nose looks a little off to me, but its a huge improvement over your original design.

[CAB]

Alright, I took all suggestions into account here. I smoothed out some lines, simplified the feathers, and got rid of that huge gap of negative space by adding some feathers. So what do you guys think? Improvement?

EDIT: don't know why the outer edge of the logo came out all choppy like that. Oh well.

[tvko]

Still the face is way off to the right, when I feel like it should be emphasized a little bit more. Move it back a little. Amazing progression on this, though.

[GeauxColonels]

Alright, I took all suggestions into account here. I smoothed out some lines, simplified the feathers, and got rid of that huge gap of negative space by adding some feathers. So what do you guys think? Improvement?

EDIT: don't know why the outer edge of the logo came out all choppy like that. Oh well.

I'm assuming you're working this as a vector graphic and then saving as a different file type before posting it on here, right? Try saving it as a ".png" file instead of a ".jpg"

Also, I still think you need to work on the bridge of the nose. It doesn't work. Think about the line that's coming from inside the near eye-socket. In this case, the indian's right eye. The shadow in the near eye shouldn't connect through the bridge to the tip of the nose. It just doesn't look right. Take the following Ottawa Senators logo as an example.

[CAB]

GeauxColonels- is this along the lines of what you were thinking?

I also moved the face back a little like tvko suggested.

[Patchey13]

GeauxColonels- is this along the lines of what you were thinking?

I also moved the face back a little like tvko suggested.

Instead of having the bridge of the nose connect to the near eye, move it over to the far eye. The face is still too far off to the side as well. I'm assuming the ear area is around the feathers hanging down from the head dress. Spread things out to the left and fill in that empty blue space. You're making good progress though.

[CAB]

Good call on moving the bridge of the nose, I think that helped tremendously. I think I'm gonna let this sit a couple days, that always seems to help. Then I'll come back and try to adress what you're talking about with all that empty blue space.

[CAB]

Alrighty now. I moved the feathers back a little and gave hime some shadowing near the cheeck so the face wouldn't feel so distant from the rest of the logo. I don't think it's quite finished, but I definitely feel that it's getting there. With some help and a few more tweaks here and tehre, I think I could get this prit'near close to the finished product. C&C anyone?

[GeauxColonels]

That's a definite improvement on the nose. It looks much more natural. You're definitely moving in a good direction with this.