Design a New Logo, A Better Logo, A Faster Logo for deviantART

• Design a new mark and a new logotype that meets all of the requirements we set for ourselves (as explained below).


• The logo design must be in black only. No gradients, no special colors. Just a black logo on a white background.


• Submit your entry to the Epic Logo Category!


• You've got 2 weeks to show us your stuff! The challenge begins right now, and ends October 14, 2008 at 11:59pm!


• All entries will be judged by $liquisoft, $spyed, and a team of designers. However, there is no guarantee of a winner being chosen. If we don't see a logo that outdoes what we've already created, then we will continue rolling out this new logo.

And first prize wins $2,500

Source: http://news.deviantart.com/article/59019/



Emblematic structure
In my opinion, the best logos are the ones that feel official. This can be obtained through a variety of means (including some of the methodologies explained further on in this article), but the best way to get that "official" feel is to ensure high craftsmanship in the execution of lines, lack of special effects that could distort the quality of the mark, and paying special attention to spacial relationships. We were very careful in the execution of the mark, and there was a ton of back and forth line drawing that occurred to ensure that every line was as perfect as we could make it.

Bold
A great logo is bold and isn't quiet. A logo doesn't have to scream at you, but it should exude a sense of confidence and be the center of attention as much as possible. The best logos ever made have been very bold, and this was intended to be no exception. Making a logo bold also ensures it will scale down to small sizes without any loss of visibility.

Based upon simple geometry
Simple shapes, such as the square, circle, and triangle, are key to ensuring an attractive symbol. The human eye, for whatever reason, prefers base geometric forms to squished or stretched ones. As such, the lines in this mark are based upon circles, triangles, and squares. Additionally, the mark is housed in a square enclosure.

Angular
One of the first things you learn as a designer is how the angle of lines can convey emotion. Horizontal lines imply a sense of calm and tranquility, and are reminiscent of the horizon line that the sun rises and falls from. Vertical lines imply a sense of strength and dominance, and are reminiscent of trees and buildings. Angular lines imply motion and excitement, and are reminiscent of the shape people take when they're running (among other things). To ensure this logo was more exciting than the previous one, we made use of angular lines.

Lines are reminiscent of retro culture (we're geeks, after all)
Atari, Sega, IBM. These are icons of true geekery. Using these icons of geekitude as examples, we aimed to convey a sensibility we are all familiar with. Yes, we're all artists, but we're all artists who use digital tools.

Familiar enclosure
Ever noticed our avatars? They are all essentially 50x50 icons, and their base shape is a square. We wanted to visually connect our logo to our avatars, which is partly why we chose the rounded square shape as an enclosure.

Familiar lettering
When we began this initiative, we had two options: 1) Design a completely new logo with an entirely new concept or 2) Design a new logo that had similarities to the old logo. Considering this community's attachment and familiarity with the typical "dA" mark, not to mention the fact that everybody refers to the site as "dA," it made sense to not reinvent the wheel and simply try to take the same old concept and give it a new outfit.

Balance
The old mark was imbalanced, and this made it difficult to use. It occupied a very misaligned space and felt squished, and this caused any method of using it to feel awkward. This new logo was designed to occupy a more geometric space, and as a result it's more versatile. Despite the mark being angled, the overall sensibility is balanced very well.

Simplicity
This is key in logo design. It is imperative to create a simple mark, thus ensuring it can be used in a wide variety of ways without watering down its recognizability and brand integrity. Simple shapes are easier to recognize, and are a quicker read for the average eye. Additionally, by keeping it simple we're able to ensure the logo, when printed or seen at small sizes, still retains its original integrity. Simplicity is also beautiful.

Typographic balance
The new typography was designed with balance in mind. I know the term "balance" has been repeated numerous times during this discourse, but it really is an important factor of all design. The new typography uses a common x-height and baseline, ensuring that the overall visible form of the logotype is equal on both the "deviant" side and the "ART" side. Considering that we've always know this site as deviantART (with ART being in caps) it wasn't reasonable to change the whole of the letterform to be all lowercase or all uppercase. So we decided to use a specialized small caps instead to help create this sense of balance we were aiming for. Considering the fact that the eye sees the shape of words and not the letters individually, I wanted to be sure that the shape of the word more or less created a visual straight line across its top (as opposed to the mountainous jump near the word "ART" that was present in the previous version).

Designed for print and web
A lot of designers don't take into account the fact that a logo, any logo, will be seen on both a website and on printed materials. The typography on our mark had to be legible in both cases, and as much as possible. A lot of attention went into the form of every letter to make sure they would scale up and down well, would print well, and also kept an even weight throughout every stroke.

Customization and originality
To create our typography, we began with a pre-existing font (though one that is not very prominent). We were careful in our selection of font, as we wanted it to convey a certain sensibility. The particular one we picked had a sense of techiness to it, which originates with the squared structure of every letterform. It is also highly legible and works great in body copy. From there we took a close look at every letterform and went through several rounds of customization, all with the intent of making every letterform as perfect as possible and also to modify the shape of every letter so we could conceptually "own" its appearance (i.e., make it look unique to dA). The end result was a logotype which looks unique to us and not just something somebody quickly typed out.
Tags - epic , logo , challenge , deviantart , da

GF一直在加班，国庆前几天只好在家里宅了几天，补了不少觉。白天比较萎靡不过晚上倒是劲头十足，今天等着看欧冠转播的时候给博客加上了几个"收藏到网摘“的链接：

其他都还没啥问题，不过最想加的digg链接始终搞不定。不管用了哪种方法最后从博客链出去的url里就是多了一个”/“导致digg识别不出链接，这个问题让我非常郁闷，一点也想不通为啥，因为其他几个网站链接的参数、结构都几乎一模一样但digg的死活就是有问题。。。只好暂时作罢，改天继续修改。。。
Tags - 博客 , 网摘 , 链接

下赛季联盟杯（The UEFA Cup）要改叫欧洲联赛（The UEFA Europa League）了，Logo也变成这样了:

旧Logo：

via


Tags - 联盟杯 , 欧洲联赛 , logo

帮朋友招人～GE（通用电气）的FMP（Finance Management Project）招毕业一年以内的同学，工作地点是上海，欢迎优秀同学联系我~

有兴趣的朋友可以发信给我：yingjunjiu [at] gmail [dot] com

貌似大赛已经ready to go，主办方的管理员也称这将是规模最大的一届，但是so far看来奖品质量不如上届，没有360游戏机也没有本本，最拿得出手的是ATI的显卡。但anyway，这也算是圈内为数不多的盛会之一，能够提供大家展现自我的平台，希望届时能看到更棒的作品！  :D

2008 GUI Championships官方网站：http://www.guichamps.com/
Tags - 2008 , gui , champs , 大奖赛 , 冠军赛 , 官网 , 发布

Tags - adobe , photoshop , cs4 , feature , tour

PhotoShop CS4 seems have plenty of new updates in UI and great performance enhancement by using GPU, Can't wait to see the full suite in action in my office.

New features:

• Content-Aware Scaling
• Photoshop CS4 will use the GPU
• Smoother panning and zooming and fluid canvas rotation
• Adjustments panel
• Extended depth of field
• Masks panel

Official Site: Adobe - Creative Suite 4 family
Tags - adobe , creative , suite , 4 , cs4 , cs , photoshop

刚刚从MusicSailor听到的The Killers新单曲 —— Human

新专辑11月发行，期待中～

The Killers官网：http://www.thekillersmusic.com/

The Killers - Human

I did my best to notice
when the call came down the line
up to the platform of surrender
I was brought but I was kind
and sometimes I get nervous
when I see an open door

close your eyes, clear your heart

cut the cord
are we human or are we denser
my sign is vital, my hands are cold
and I'm on my knees looking for the answer
are we human or are we denser

pay my respects to grace and virtue
send my condolences to good
give my regards to soul and romance
they always did the best they could
and so long to devotion, you taught me everything I know
wave good bye, wish me well

you gotta let me go
are we human or are we denser
my sign is vital, my hands are cold
and I'm on my knees looking for the answer
are we human or are we denser

will your system be alright
when you dream of home tonight
there is no message we're receiving
let me know is your heart still beating

are we human or are we denser
my sign is vital, my hands are cold
and I'm on my knees looking for the answer

you've gotta let me know
are we human or are we denser
my sign is vital, my hands are cold
and I'm on my knees looking for the answer
are we human
or are we denser

are we human or are we denser

are we human or are we denser

Tags - the , killers , 音乐 , 单曲 , human

抵制全球变暖的公益视频

Tags - 全球变暖 , 公益 , 广告 , 视频

很早以前就抱怨过SkinStudio6有不少让老手不习惯的地方，用到现在依然挺不适应的，不过至少SS还是一直在改进，在不断地完善。最近发布的6.3版就有了很多新功能，虽然都不是革命性的，有些新功能也不太成熟，但是功能越来越强，细节也越来越完善的SkinStudio还是值得期待的！


启动界面上右侧的一大块区域终于用了起来，目前显示了最近打开的五个主题的预览图，点击就可以直接开始编辑



设置为树形目录的时候底部有了搜索框，很贴心的设计，可是搜索很难用。。。名字输入太精确了找不到东西，太粗略了又巨多结果，而且每输入一个字母就搜索一下，速度很慢。。。



很多地方都加入了Animations标签页，加入了强化过得动画功能，比如可以设置动画在不同帧之间循环。



设置Margin的地方除了以前的颜色方块之外加入了T、B、L、R来表示方位，比较不错，虽然只是很小的地方，但确实解决了我这个单线程脑瓜在制作主题时的一些麻烦。




主界面加入了How Do I按钮，点击之后会弹出对话框解决一些藏的比较深，对一些本来可能要直接修改代码的地方进行设置。



另外在编辑页面直接显示图片的尺寸、可以自定义单击还是双击打开编辑页面的功能也算是不错的改进。

Tags - skinstudio