First logo, experts please critique and help out

[shroomdoc]

I had grand ideas for my first logo, of course, but here's what I've got so far:



I used Photoshop. Part of what I wanted was to use the text tool to put in "Running Back U" somewhere, like across the top. I couldn't find a collegiate looking font though. I'm also not happy with the background, any suggestions? I might try to find another crowd image and see if it will work better. Hey, I just had another idea - our eagle, Tiger, flying across the American flag, on the left side of the logo, to bookend the interlocking AU.

So anyway, graphics experts, can you give constructive criticism? It's just too crowded, isn't it? So many good backs, though... Thanks!

[kanezfan11]

Yeah, I think it's a little too crowded - but it's great for a first sig I'd think. Everything looks to be cut out good and the sizing is pretty creative - them getting bigger towards the middle. Id recommend just taking the best 2 or 3 and make the pictures bigger though. The logo should be centered more and it could use a border also.

Border:

Ctrl>Shift>NF
Ctrl>A
Edit>Stroke

Then you could take it from there with whatever border you want. You could also just hold shift down and draw the border around with a pencil.

Again though, very good for a first.

[gogogadget]

I love the idea. It being Auburn makes it awesome imediately .

Here is a collegiate type font you may want to look at.

http://www.dafont.com/en/font.php?file=college

to use it for photoshop, copy the file into C:\Windows\Fonts


if you dont like that one try some of the other ones dafont has that may work.

http://www.dafont.com/en/theme.php?cat=104


I like the sig though. That is a nice sig, especially for the first one.

[A2theIzzo]

If you are making a Logo for the Cafe, i reccomend you not put so many players in your sigs. Quality of it goes way down.

Great first sig tough!

[gogogadget]

One other thing you may think about is putting only three guys on it, somehow incorporate the names of the others on the side of the sig. That way it would become less crowded, like you talked about, and it would still get the point across.

[shroomdoc]

Thanks everyone. Okay, I am generally a simpler is better type of person, so I understand that concept - I think one of the best logos I've seen on here is that guy's with the neon outline of Ray Lewis and his number, the rest all black. I guess my biggest problem is the grand idea/theme of the thing being the stable of running backs. It's hard to leave the players off - narrowing it down to 6 was hard enough! But I'm working on it. Here's the latest, still a work in progress:



(I just realized that Ronnie's image is too dark, I'll lighten that one up to match if I can.)

Getting better? It was tough to leave off Cribbs and Fullwood. I need some good text. ("Eye of the Tiger" is a good theme for this one - yes! I love cheese!) I couldn't get that collegiate true type font to work for some reason. I put it in the windows/fonts folder, also in common files/adobe, but it doesn't show up when I change fonts in Photoshop. Is there something else I need to do?

[gogogadget]

well, maybe you copied the wrong file...I'll tell you what I usually do when I get a font from dafont and maybe it will help you out.

When I find the text I like I click the link that says "Download PC/Mac OS X". Then a window opens that asks me whether I want to open with compressed folder or save to disk. I choose compressed folder. Then the compressed folder pops up and I have to "extract all files". The the extracted files pop up and I click on the text file and click on "move file" and choose C\Windows\Fonts.

That does it for me, I can go to photoshop and it is in the list of fonts. If that doesn't work for you, then I'm sorry but I dont know what went wrong.

--

The second sig looks much better. The border helped out and the three players looks better than the six because it is less crowded. It was probably a hard decision trying to choose from only three.

[deluxe_247]

the newer one is much better, a lot less crowded. you might want to put a little bit of glow around the players to help separate them from your background though, or even a drop shadow would work. just go into blending options an play aroud with them.

nice work, especially for a first sig

[shroomdoc]

Latest offering:



I think I'm getting better. The crowd background was not working, so I added some filtered color. I think it looks better. Unfortunately, it seems like I have too many effects going on, still too crowded, because when I save it for web and get it to the small size, it just ends up looking crappy. I'll keep going. Thanks everyone for your critiques and help!

[shroomdoc]

Latest work: