Company Design Challenge

[steve.ledger]

Thanks for explaining further Remi. And once again you are correct, this definately is the way things should proceed in a real-world situation.

For the benefit of members participating in your challenge, "Our imaginary customer" - could this be you?
Can members therefore ask you more about services/plans/solutions/goals and so on? Or alternatively, fabricate their own customer relation scenario based on their submitted results? This would then allow much more design freedom than OP implied.

[remi]

Can members therefore ask you more about services/plans/solutions/goals and so on?

Unfortnately not, because that means that I would have to think out such answers and currently I have a tight schedule (it's always the same - if you need time you get no time)

Or alternatively, fabricate their own customer relation scenario based on their submitted results? This would then allow much more design freedom than OP implied.

Yes, I'm sure this could work well.

Remi

[ankhor]

There is also another interesting point and perhaps it's because we all know that this is a artificial Challenge (and a fun one, not a serious one), but nobody has tried to ask the customer about more details.

Remi

Hmm good point, we could ask for more info to.
But when you make a design that the customer has seen
you expect some feedback, and from that point you can
further explore. I do competition sites just to get this feedback
(I never win ) but atleast you get an idea what goes on in
a customers head. (and it aint pretty )

[remi]

Yes, I see what you mean, ankhor.

So let us continue with Frances (angelize) design:
First, let me say I like your idea to create a slogan for the customer. Your slogan is good for the Graphics Design part of the company.

For the other parts of your design I could give you some constructive criticism, if you wish:

• Your visitcard looks good in my eyes. Only one further important detail is missed: the email address.
• The slogan on your letterhead could be a little bit smaller.
• The logo is the most critical part of the design. The problem is again, that all what I could say, reflects my personal taste. In other words, I could be completely wrong. With this in our mind I would not recommend to set the two letters "TG" in this way. Perhaps it looks better, if you try to set them next to each other, but not on top of each other. If you have some plastic- or wood-letters from a game, you could try to arrange them in a more naturally position and try to make a photo of them. Another idea is to use a 3D software, to arrange them (perhaps not for this challenge, but for future designs).
• One last point is the colour of the logo: I'm not sure, if it's based on the same green like the green in the background. If you use Xara Xtreme, you could try to work with "named colours" and let the dark green be a "shade" of the first green. This is a easy technique to be sure, that the shades are based on the main colour (and you're able to change the main colour and all the other colours automatically switches).

I hope, I'm not too overcritical in your eyes. Maybe we can get more opinions on every design, in order to get more input from different views?

Regards,
Remi

[remi]

Steve (sledger), you have posted two great designs. I will comment the first one:
The colours are great, the round edges looks good and also the used font is fine.

My constructive criticism is about the following minor points:
The first time I've looked at your letterhead I thought, that the logo could be more moved to the right margin. The problem is, that the gun in the background belongs to the logo, but not the the "optical" overall width of the logo. But in the end I'm not really sure, if the logo needs a little bit move to the right margin or not.



Another point is the background of your visitcard: It looks good but I also like the white outline around the logo very much and the outline isn't visible anymore on the left side of the logo (see the hardcopy). Perhaps it's possible to move the white colour in the background more to the left.



All in all, in my eyes this is a very attractive design.

Regards,
Remi

[steve.ledger]

Thanks for commenting Remi.

I think you are correct in mentioning the 'margins' and is something I'd naturally tweak before finalising and sending to print. This would be a proof for the customer to say 'I LOVE IT' before any of those tweaks are done.

Perhaps it's possible to move the white colour in the background more to the left.

There's nothing to move Remi. The white border is present behind 100% of the text, it just fades to nothing because the green background fades to white. This was the effect I wanted

Aligning the text left where suggested didn't look right to me (now there's a paradoxical line!! haha). But then, it could look right to the customer, so here would be another tweak before the final design is printed.

Round edge business cards are very popular here, my own are like this. One side is glossy while the back is uncoated and can be written on. They appear more professional and stand out from the crowd - which is what it's all about - 'Being Noticed'

[angelize]

Thank you Soquili and remi for the coments. Remi actually I do use Xara Xtreme Pro and I did use named colours. The letters TG are the parent colour and the rest of the greens are shades of that.

[ankhor]

Okay I do the same for my own design.

"very original, too busy."
That is always the shortest explanation

I just have to wait until that gets into fashion. ;o)

[remi]

Hi Ankhor,

I've thought about your designs again and again. Let us look at your first design in this thread in depth:

The logo looks good. I like the round letter "T", integrated with the letter "G". But I would recommend to use another font for the "TG Consulting & Design" company name. If you could use nearly the same font as in the logo, it looks more harmonious in my eyes.

You said it before, the visitcard looks too busy. The eyes of the viewers are always wandering around, without a clear concept (indicated with the red line):


You should create a grid on your visitcard, in order to set the elements with
a) constant distance and
b) harmonic arrangement.

If you want to use your icons, you should recreate them with equal sizes and perhaps with the same round style as your logo.

Another important point is your colour scheme: It could be your intention to make it not harmonic, and sometimes it's a good idea in order to create expressive art, but when it comes to company design I would prefer to please the eyes of the beholder. And that means, you need a well thought-out colour scheme.

You could use the well known colour scheme generator or you could use good photos or drawings as reference. I've searched for some good example photos, in order to give you some inspirations.

Look at this photo: The colours looks harmonic and you could use the colour picker of your Graphics Editor, in order to assort a colour palette.

Let us look at the colour scheme of your letterhead:


I have picked the used colours in the small rectangles. I wouldn't recommend this blue above a green background and I wouldn't combine the beige with the green.

Perhaps some more inspirations of more harmonic colour schemes:

• green, blue, rose, red, white
• green, blue, red, orange
• green and blue
• green and brown
• blue, green, yellow
• blue, yellow, red, green

Another great source of inspiration are the works of old masters. Judi has posted a link to a website with examples in this thread.

Remi

[ankhor]

Thanks Remi, I could use the pointers.

I will certainly look into the colorschemes.
I always had problems with colors, I am partially
colorblind, so that has always been an issue with me.
But with computers, pantone color numbers etc.
and a good explanation about what colors work best together
I should get further than I did before there were computers.

And about the red line, that is how my brain works.
it is al over the place, and youngsters are getting like that
too, al over the place.
So it might be a good design for the future.

But maybe I should just do some yoga before
making a design, that way I am calm.
And I miss the technical education about things like these
I caught up some, there are some good documentairies
about how to devide the visualplane and I keep searching for
more info about this.

In the meantime I just keep enjoying making graphics.
And practise makes perfect, well atleast better.

Thanks again for the pointers.