the.ronin Posted October 27, 2005 Share Posted October 27, 2005 This thread will be reserved to share and discuss all manner of design arcana. Questions, comments, observations, links, and random pontification are all welcome. I myself will be posting my own links to various design resources and would be more than happy to answer questions or provide tutorials within the boundaries of my design mojo. I encourage you to feel the same. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the.ronin Posted October 27, 2005 Author Share Posted October 27, 2005 On Logos A perfect logo is defined by 3 factors. 1) A logo must be 'identifiable.' This means that some details in your logo makes it readable in any kind of circumstances (on a fax, on TV or on a car, a logo can be huge or extremly small). 2) A logo needs to be 'memorable.' This means: a simple shape, 1, 2, or 3 colors maximum and a simple but smart idea. The more color and more shapes used, the more difficult it is to remember. It takes an average 46 times to remember a 2 colors logo, much more when 3 colors are being used. 3) The last but most important factor, a logo has to be 'harmonious.' The aesthetic of a logo is not only a question of beautiful imagery and nice color it is also a question of harmony between 'an idea' and 'a shape.' This is why the selection of the right concept for your logo design is key to reach an appropriate result. I’ve found the following sites particularly helpful in getting the design juices flowin ... 15 Trends in Logo Design Brands of the World Flash Booty Logos Logoed Digital Web’s The Process of Redesigning a Logo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colin Posted October 27, 2005 Share Posted October 27, 2005 I am not in to this sorta thing really. Its a good post, very interesting indeed. I do like one of the things that I found realy helpfull in making stuff in Adobe CS is the video Tutorials, I am getting on a bit and find it very hard to read my way through stuff, but a good Video Tutorial now thats the ticket, visual learning has always been my thing. It would be good if you might consider making a video while you are creating a basic Logo, just a thought. Colin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
halo_jones Posted October 27, 2005 Share Posted October 27, 2005 nice links ..... ronin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BornToKill Posted October 28, 2005 Share Posted October 28, 2005 Some nice info there Ronin. Colin / Halo_jones, i see you 2 are both from Devon.Don't suppose yous guys live near Sidmouth.Had some old friends down there i've not seen in a looooong time. I go down every year for the FolkFestival, and Beautiful Days Festival. All the guys and Gals i used to know down there seemed to have moved on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Posted October 28, 2005 Share Posted October 28, 2005 hehehe england Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
le Tigre Posted October 31, 2005 Share Posted October 31, 2005 It's also a very good idea to keep all logos vector based, it'll save you many head ach's along the way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the.ronin Posted October 31, 2005 Author Share Posted October 31, 2005 It's also a very good idea to keep all logos vector based, it'll save you many head ach's along the way. ← To elaborate, you can enlarge and shrink vectors to your heart's content without sacrificing resolution. As opposed to bitmap images which will get pixelated as you enlarge them. This is particularly useful when you are creating 1000s x 1000s of pixel large images in 320 dpi for print quality. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spoondle Posted October 31, 2005 Share Posted October 31, 2005 Good stuff... I can't wait to see what you're going to share next. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mordred Posted October 31, 2005 Share Posted October 31, 2005 Hmm , I'm with stupid again... Vector based? u mean *.PSD format? -M- Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dannik Posted October 31, 2005 Share Posted October 31, 2005 Vector: Think of an infinitely stretchable balloon. You know it's going to be shaped a certain way, so all you need to know is the colour, and no matter how large or small you inflate it, it will scale perfectly, as all that is stored is shape and colour. Size doesn't matter, as you can keep expanding, and it will grow smoothly. Raster: Think of a printout of a photo of the same balloon. Kept it's original size, it's perfect, but as you expand or contract it, you either need to add or take away data, but your computer can't do anything but guess what to remove or how/where to add the data, meaning aliasing (jaggies). PSD format can contain both vector and raster images, but it's raster-native. If you blow it up, it will look like it's been, well, blown up. AI (Adobe Illustrator) is pure vector, and no matter how you scale it, it will look identical to the original image, just a different size. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the.ronin Posted October 31, 2005 Author Share Posted October 31, 2005 Very well put Dannik. Here are some good links on the topic... Link 1 Link 2 Link 3 Link 4 The essence behind the power of Flash is its ability to render deceivingly phenomenal amounts of animation in very small sizes. It does so through vector animation. Even if a bitmap is imported, it is treated as a vector object containing a bitmap. This yields teremendous potential in skilled hands. Hence, knowing the difference between vector and bitmap is essential. And knowing is half the battle!! Goooo JOE!!!!!! [Edit] I feel so old. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
le Tigre Posted October 31, 2005 Share Posted October 31, 2005 Another little fact along the disscussion of vector's is that fonts are vector based, this is why when scaling a font it always retains the exact same shape and appearance. Now you know! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the.ronin Posted November 10, 2005 Author Share Posted November 10, 2005 The Evil Lasso I thought I'd share a few quick tips on that love em or hate em tool otherwise known as the lasso ... yknow ... in case you were to, say, photoshop a sign into a very oddball location on the planet ... like one with a big chasm So here is my tip numero uno ... GO SLOW ... there is nothing more tempting than to hurry along but the end result is really worth it if you take your time. Zoom in massively as needed, but do not hesitate to also take the time to zoom out ... sometimes being too zoomed, you lose track of whether that part you are accidentally lassoing off the subject's foot because of color merging. Use Feathering ... I hate jagged edges when I lasso out an element in a picture and paste it in another. To fix this, I will feather 1 pixel or as much as 3 pixels if its a particularly high resolution image. While I am lassoing, I will keep that feather in mind and perhaps lasso further in than I normally would to avoid that nasty halo effect. Select Inverse ... sometimes it is easier to lasso out the background than it is the subject ... use 'select inverse' ... but when feathering, note that this will leave a trace of image around the borders. I will run an eraser to get rid of this. Apply feather to the eraser when you get close to where the subject meets the border to avoid jags. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
le Tigre Posted November 14, 2005 Share Posted November 14, 2005 As for what ronin said regarding the feather'ing of images, In CS2 there is a feature called defringe, it does exatly what Ronin mentions, but its what this feature was accually designed to do, where as feathering has other purposes, but does work well here too. The benifit of defringe is that it dosent leave the slight gradiant edge around your image. It's been a while but I also believe that CS had this as well, I can remember versions past that however. Now you Know! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dilligas Posted November 15, 2005 Share Posted November 15, 2005 I can't stand using the Lasso. I usually just use extract, and then the eraser for the bits that are left. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BornToKill Posted November 15, 2005 Share Posted November 15, 2005 i have CS but dont see no defringe. Alot depens on the backgound of the image, if its an easy solid colour i just use the magic wand, with a low rgb tolerance say about 5, feather between .5 and 2 pixels depending on image resolution. Medium noise backgrounds i use the magnetic lasso, with varying tolerance depending on color ranges. Very noisy backgrounds, you gotta take your time with these either way, either i'll lasso it, but most time i'll erase right around with a sharp edge eraser, then once happy with the outline ,magic wand and cut with a slight feather. Sometimes on jpgs i'll apply a noise filter and despeckle the image before starting, and fade the effect if need be, this help reduce some of the Jpeg image errosion that you get sometimes. Working with transparent gif's but hate how the matte that sometimes gets applied to semi transparent pixels?This applies more to web graphics. Sometimes the matte works sweet, but sometimes i find it bloody awful. One trick i find that helps is to create a new layer behind your image and fill this layer with the background color or gradient it's gonna be sitting on. I then select my image layer, magic wand it, select inverse, go back to the background layer and cut out the selection.Merge the 2 layers.Now Your semi transparent pixels are no longer opaque, but a solid shade somewhere between you background colour and its original colour.You can now export without using a matte and they will blend better against your webpage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
le Tigre Posted November 15, 2005 Share Posted November 15, 2005 (edited) All good points, the thing to remember is that there are about a dozen diffrent ways to extract parts of images, what it really comes down to is the accuall image its self, often Ill use multiple techniques on one image alone. As for defringe select layer- matting- defringe (thats CS2 but Im sure it was in CS aswell) And there are a tone of other little tricks to make the selection easier on yourself, but even if you were sitting beside me it would take hours to go over all the tricks. edit: Sometimes Ill even take the image into illustrator (making a copy of the image) to help make a selection path. Antoher tip, remember this one.... save your selection paths. Edited November 15, 2005 by MissLoki Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BornToKill Posted November 15, 2005 Share Posted November 15, 2005 Well well so it is, learn something new each day as they say. Cheers for that Loki, your welcome to sit by me and show me ur tips n tricks anyday. As for Illustrator, man i'm just trying to get used to the thing at present, Photoshop was a piece of cake to grasp, to be honest Illustrator is a PIA, but i'm sure i'll get it eventually.I even bought a graphics pad to help draw in Illustrator, itching to put it to good use, but i usually end up deleting it and going back to PS where i'm happy.I will keep plugin at AI as i can see it's massive potential esspecially for webgraphics, and the future of SVG's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the.ronin Posted November 15, 2005 Author Share Posted November 15, 2005 Oh crap, we got serious honest to goodness designers here!! Man, I've always been meaning to get my arms around Illustrator and After Effects ... only cos I see that in the bios of so many designers Still, I've no clue what they are hahaha. Bah. I still haven't even gotten around to really knowing Photoshop ... so far Fireworks just seems to do the job just fine. (Except when I'm doing some creative video extraction then I fire up JASC Animation Shop.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
le Tigre Posted November 15, 2005 Share Posted November 15, 2005 Illustrator is an absolutly powerful program, my signature is a 20 minute Illustrator job. There are certian things I will always use Illstrator for, other photoshop, but I find often I use both. I use a graphics pad a fair bit, but I find I like to work on paper alot better, from there Ill often use a scanner to put the pencil design on there and then convert it into a vector based image. For those of you who don't know thats what illustrator is designed for, vector design. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the.ronin Posted November 15, 2005 Author Share Posted November 15, 2005 Hmmm ... this Illustrator thingy sounds mighty spiff. Can you elaborate more on what one could do with Illustrator that one would not be able to do (or it would take prohibitively long?) in Photoshop? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snared_gambit Posted November 15, 2005 Share Posted November 15, 2005 Illustrator works with vectors. Like Flash, except the animation bit. It's very nice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dannik Posted November 15, 2005 Share Posted November 15, 2005 Ronin, Illustrator is to Photoshop as Freehand is to Fireworks. Photoshop/Fireworks are for raster images, but can also be useful for vector art. Illustrator/Freehand are for high end artwork, not image manipulation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SAWmonger Posted November 15, 2005 Share Posted November 15, 2005 Ronin, Illustrator is to Photoshop as Freehand is to Fireworks. Photoshop/Fireworks are for raster images, but can also be useful for vector art. Illustrator/Freehand are for high end artwork, not image manipulation. ← Jeebus raster vector image manipulation; sounds like magnetic poetry. I'm glad there are other Fireworks users out there. I thought I might be the only one not using Photoshop. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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