Artwork & Design (suggestions)

[Chris]

On Wednesday, 19 February 2014 at 19:29:36 UTC, Walter Bright 
wrote:
> On 2/19/2014 10:50 AM, Chris wrote:
>> I've uploaded some suggestions for sticker and t-shirt design 
>> (not necessarily
>> for DConf).
>>
>> http://wendlerchristoph.wordpress.com/designs-for-d/
>>
>> Feel free to comment. In case anyone is interested in one of 
>> the designs, just
>> contact me on this forum. I have all designs as SVGs created 
>> with Inkscape, but
>> I can create other formats too.
>
> First off, thanks! It's always fun to see new D artwork.

I think we definitely need more.

> Secondly, as everyone tells me, I have no artistic taste. Keep 
> that in mind when reading my comments.

Is it because of the old Dodge? :-)

> 1. I like "Better by Dsign". I wonder how it would look with 
> the D logo  (seen on dconf.org) as the stylized D?

Yes, I was thinking about that too and I'd like to give it a try, 
if I could get a high resolution version of it _or_ I can redraw 
it myself.

> 2. The make the switch slogan is a nice one, but the logo 
> doesn't really look like a D, and if I didn't know the artwork 
> was supposed to be about D, I would never guess it.

I feared it would not be immediately recognizable as a "D", but 
wanted to hear other people's opinions. I could stretch it a bit 
to make it look more like a "D" and I guess it is a type of 
design that needs context (unless I can find a way to integrate 
the official D logo).
   "D" is a very difficult letter to work with. It is bulky and 
takes up a lot of space, and it conflicts with other shapes, but 
I already have some ideas I will experiment with.

> 3. The designs look a bit spartan.

I think a logo and designs around it should be spartan or let's 
say "minimalistic". Else people won't remember it. It should be 
immediately recognizable. The Apple logo, British Rail 
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail) and ArchLinux come 
to mind.
   Another reason is that simple designs are easier to reproduce 
on various items (cups, t-shirts, pens, stickers etc.), both 
technically (printing) and artistically (i.e. you don't have to 
simplify beyond recognition). FreeBSD had problems with their 
logo (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeBSD#Logo).
   In the early 2010s everything became shiney and colorful, but 
for a few years now companies have applied more minimalistic 
styles as regards icons (cf. OS X "Home" and "Download" icons, 
Ubuntu, Google, Facebook etc.). I guess because it is clearer and 
less distracting.
   If you perform a search on duckduckgo.com it usually lists the 
respective icons next to a hit. The ones you can immediately 
recognize are (among others): Wikipedia, ArchLinux and Stack 
Overflow. This is very important and it is important that an logo 
can be recognized even if it's scaled down to 16x16px (cf. 
Twitter logo).
   By the way, if you search:
     https://duckduckgo.com/?q=d-programming
you get three different D logos on the left! Maybe we should 
change this.

@Dicebot
Yes, definitely. The reference to dlang.org should appear 
somewhere. My designs are not yet "shippable". I will work out 
something.

@John J
Thanks. I think "better byDsign" pretty much sums it up.