Crappy GIMP Logo - HELP!

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kpr121

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So I remember being a little more skilled at this back in high school (although I was using a pirated version of PS then). Here's my crappy sketch of what I want my logo to look like. Its gonna take me a while to clean it all up and I'll need to work in a higher resolution to make it look nice.

I'd like for the "106" to be behind the bars, with the 0 possibly being a hop cone. I'd also like to list the acronym for BAR - Brew Against (the) Rules somewhere, possibly down the three larger jail bars.

Any tips or criticism/ideas are appreciated.

04_breweryLogo_COMBINED.jpg
 
Gimp is actually fairly powerful. I think with a little practice you can probably pull together something that you're looking for. I'd say start by playing with your fonts to get the feel you're looking for. There's a ton of free fonts at dafont.com. Designs have always seem to come together better for me once I had a font to work around. YMMV.
 
You may have better luck with a vector-based drawing program. Inkscape is an open-source option for that, adobe illustrator is the commercial "gold standard".

I would second Fid's comment though; GIMP is really powerful, once you learn its quirks. There is little you can do in photoshop that cannot be done in GIMP. FWIW, there is a "skinned" version of GIMP that more closely resembles photoshop.

Bryan
 
You may have better luck with a vector-based drawing program. Inkscape is an open-source option for that, adobe illustrator is the commercial "gold standard"


I second this. If you are doing design on the cheap Inkscape is the way to go! Pretty easy to use. When we had our first kid I made our own baby announcements with this and they looked as good as the ones that people pay good money for. Try it!
 
Try starting with an actual barred window image. I made this in about 10 minutes in Gimp, starting with this image, found by doing a Google image search for "barred window" (no quotes, large images only).

barkl.png


The fonts are Chalkduster and Impact. The original image colors are toned down by overlaying the original image on a black and white version of itself, then making the color layer fairly transparent. The "B.A.R Brewing" text has a light drop shadow. The "101" text is underneath the color image layer and has the cloud filter and a slight blur applied.

It's rough. The window/text are not quite centered on the logo, and the "B.A.R." text would probably look better on an arc. Ideally, the original image would have a little more room at the top for the text, as well. However, it took only a few minutes to create what I think is a rather striking effect using some of the more powerful features of Gimp - layers, transparency, filters, etc.

If you think that Gimp should be able to create a particular effect, Google it. Someone else has likely made a tutorial for it. Also, I find it difficult to draw anything more complex than simple shapes from scratch, particularly when attempting photo-realism. It's much easier to start with an existing image or image fragment than to create a completely new, complex design.

EDIT: Oops...it should be "106." But you get the idea.
 
Thanks for the tips Yuri, and for taking time to draw something up for me! I like that background photo, but I thought I wanted to make something that was more simple and had less details in it. Something that would be easily transferable to a pint glass etching or similar.

Also, one of the reasons why I drew in my own cell bars and stuff is because of the symmetry. I want to incorporate the acronym "Brewing Against Rules" somehow and thought it would be cool to run the text down the three larger bars.... I was having trouble getting that to look good while still showcasing the "106".
 
Im getting there. Need to figure the coloring out, I dont like the red and green.
 
Just realized it looks a little dark, and maybe the ‘Brewing’ is a bit washed out from the background. I think I will lighten the background inside the window, and possibly block out behind the ‘Brewing’ so that it looks more like a window sill.

Im still looking for a good font for the 1 and 6, haven’t found one I like yet. It would be awesome if I could put some chains around that text, and possibly have the hop cone bursting through it, but that’s a lot above my level of expertise.
 
Too many fonts, too many clashing colors, all elements crowd the window. A simple, neutral colored, evenly placed drop shadow would look better than red one that is uneven behind the arched text. The arched text would look better if it matched the window arch. The "Brew Against Rules" text would look better if it were all one color, and even better if it looked like a sign hanging in or just above the window opening. The way you manipulated the colors on the original image makes it look mottled in the corners and weird behind the bars. I have no idea what 106 means, so it adds nothing to the design IMHO. The way the numbers are plastered haphazardly across the window looks sloppy.

Sorry if that was brutal, just attempting to be constructive.
 
Yuri_Rage said:
Too many fonts, too many clashing colors, all elements crowd the window. A simple, neutral colored, evenly placed drop shadow would look better than red one that is uneven behind the arched text. The arched text would look better if it matched the window arch. The "Brew Against Rules" text would look better if it were all one color, and even better if it looked like a sign hanging in or just above the window opening. The way you manipulated the colors on the original image makes it look mottled in the corners and weird behind the bars. I have no idea what 106 means, so it adds nothing to the design IMHO. The way the numbers are plastered haphazardly across the window looks sloppy.

Sorry if that was brutal, just attempting to be constructive.

No problem. I'll take your criticism into consideration, at least its honest feedback! I by no means thought this was a final product but a work in progress. 106 is part of the name, its gotta be there...

I like the sign idea and already stated that I need to figure out the colors and fonts....

I originally wanted to put the 106 behind the bars and the hop cone bursting through them. It seems like I just don't have the skills or time to learn to get this right, so its a work in progress.

Anyone wanna take on a graphics project? Can't say i will pay good but some 'yeast samples' in the mail could definitely be in order!
 
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