Forums Logo

[roddy]

If anyone wants the .psd file . . .

[murrayjames]

I didn't mean to come across like a dick--sorry, it's late.

Blocks of text that people read should be clear and simple, and they are. But banners and titles can stand out. Kerning, all-caps, interesting colors and fonts are all fair game. Just off the top of my head: instead of having the text backlit, you could make the blue band into a gradient that turns light blue toward the left margin, starting, say a third from the left of the screen. Solid color would work too. As yonglin said, the text is fuzzy. A change in font, point size, capitalization or bold would help with that. Also, the positioning--the title would look better flush with the white border underneath the darker blue band, or else more toward the center.

[imron]

I think what Roddy was hinting at was that he is rubbish at the design side of things, and if anyone with skills in this area wanted to volunteer their services then they are welcome to do so. Failing that, we'll be stuck with what we get

[jbradfor]

coupled with the most nondescript font imaginable. Save Times New Roman, maybe. When there are beautiful, pleasing-to-the-eye sans-serif fonts available.

Didn't even notice. I disable allowing web pages to set their own fonts. You won't believe how many bad fonts there are out there :-)

[LaoJian]

Here is my drafted idea, stem from the main goals of this forums what I'm understanding:

1 - help people to learn Chinese in better way, give them a place to discuss Chinese and communicate with each other, hopefully, every body can speak out Chinese~! so '说' is a core word in our forums

2 - we take a positive role to broadcast Chinese and Chinese history, culture to whole world.

So, idea is coming, use Speaker, on the left side of speaker, I use '言' - same as ‘说’，specially use part of this character '口'(this means mouth in Chinese) to stand for 'speaking'; on the right side of speaker, the sound wave is actually a abbreviation word of 'Chinese' - CN; speaker is right a symbol of our forums, people who use of our forums, can manage to speak out Chinese; and we also broadcast Chinese to world .

I'm not a professional designer, and this drafted version is also completed with windows paint, so it is just a rough picture to express my idea...

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Another thought, specialize '说', take '中文' as a central word, and use of multiple verbs to express different usage of our forums.

说 - speak， say with Chinese

品 - enjoy， appreciate Chinese(and culture, food, etc about China)

学 - study， learn

论 - comment，state， express ideas

谈 - communicate， discuss， talk

so these all of actions are all focus on 'Chinese'.

Lastly, I added '坛'(’forum‘ in Chinese) as the basement of whole things here, that means our forums are the foundation for these, important role.

personally, I don't think this option are suitable for logo design. it is not concise, but it is one of ideas to express our forums.

BTW, I use '象形文字' to express these word in this picture, you know, Chinese is a pictorial language, and use pictograph words can make it vivid, use 'pictures' to make up 'picture'

For getting to know '象形文字'， refer to here

[Meng Lelan]

'口'(this means mouth in Chinese) to stand for 'speaking'

乱 has a mouth too maybe we can use as a logo to express different usages of our forums.

[Hofmann]

Although I think having 篆書 in the logo is OK, using stuff like 說 like "talk" at the same time seems like an anachronism. Alright nevermind. I don't even know what to say yet. I'm too sleepy. Someone else will probably say what I want to say before I wake up anyway.

But let me be the second (or however many there are so far) to complain about the font. In the redesign, in the list of new content, the font for Chinese characters becomes a serif font. I suggest making it sans-serif to match Latin characters.

[bunny87]

i know that this forum has to do with alot of everything chinese, but for me, roddys icon thingy represents the whole website. please don't laugh too hard as you see the suggested logo.

[Glenn]

Ha, I actually kind of like that.

[LaoJian]

乱 has a mouth too maybe we can use as a logo to express different usages of our forums.

LeLan, are you just joking or serious? ‘乱’ is mostly a negative word in Chinese, same as 'mess', 'disorder', even 'turmoil', so it is definitely inappropriate for our site logo :wacko:

Actually, you could not see '口' as a separate part of '乱', but '舌'(tongue), in my understanding, '舌' has more complex function than '口', it stands for ‘skills' of speaking, in Chinese History, lots of big riots or turmoils are indeed attribute to calumny or sentences to incite or provoke at the beginning, so old Chinese people summarized 乱 has relationship with '舌'

may be In English, there are similar expressions: Bad-mouth, put one's foot in one;s mouth?

To #48 bunny87,

Haha, 这个有点太 '腐败'吧， 我们的论坛 都是 吃，喝 都是 '酒囊饭袋' 之辈吗？

reorganize the order should be better, take '学' to first one I think

[imron]

LeLan, are you just joking or serious?

Yes.

I gotta agree with Renzhe and Bunny87 that the suitcase guy is a good icon.

[Glenn]

I'll take it as a compliment that you confused me with renzhe.

[imron]

Hehe, hopefully you won't take it as an insult that I overlooked you. See #27.

[bunny87]

don't hate, but i had to use google translator to understrand what you said, laojian.

Haha, 这个有点太 '腐败'吧， 我们的论坛 都是 吃，喝 都是 '酒囊饭袋' 之辈吗？

reorganize the order should be better, take '学' to first one I think

google's translation --> This is a bit too 'corruption' it, our forum is to eat, drink is 'Jiunangfandai' of the generation it?

so, i still am not sure what you mean. but i CAN put 学 first would you perhaps like a 学，说，喜欢 combo or something? maybe some Chinese alliteration of shhh initials (x - sh - s)?

[imron]

but i CAN put 学 first

Putting it last might be more appropriate - the forums can be a great way to procrastinate when you should be studying ;)

[bunny87]

that's exactly what i'm doing now.

perhaps we could be more sophisticated than eat - drink - be happy. how about "debate - discuss - distract" ?

pleco on my phone is gone temporarily, so i have no (reputable) translations for those (or any) words.

[Hofmann]

How about two speech bubbles, one on top of another? The first one has a picture of a troll in it, and the next one has a sofa.

so old Chinese people summarized 乱 has relationship with '舌'

lol...wait...is he serious?

[creamyhorror]

How about two speech bubbles, one on top of another? The first one has a picture of a troll in it, and the next one has a sofa.

Hahaha, brilliant. Maybe we should have a series of rotating logos...suitcase guy, troll-then-sofa, etc.

[roddy]

please don't laugh too hard as you see the suggested logo.

没头脑吧，你。。。。

I'm fairly sure there would sooner or later be copyright issues with using that as an actual logo, and even if not it's a bit cheeky. You guys are all far too attached to my avatar anyway - it's unhealthy and I'm going to have to change it.

[anonymoose]

How about something like this: