GFX/Logo Board

[Da_Berr 219]

With everyone getting somewhat used to the 4 new expansion teams coming out and their logos I think it's a good time to bring this up. As you might or might not know I (Da_Berr) was responsible for two of the logos done (LA + London). Overall I think these two logos had the biggest variance of opinion on them, some loved them, some hated them. With that I suggest we have a GFX/Logo board to have a second look over all official league Logos. Obviously this board would include people that have spent a long time doing either.

 

1. It would keep the community more in touch. I remember there was a huge thing talking about keeping everyone more involved in decision making, and this would help alot.

 

2. It would help make sure logos come out the best they can be. I know this is a big issue especially for me (maybe others also), but when I was nearing the end of both LA and London logos I was over them. It wasn't something I was super passionate about and I sped through the final stages. As a result both LA and London Logos were released officially with some major issues. The BOG and Commishs are great about preliminary checks and the concepts shown, but they are busy people and can miss some details. In the LA logo as boubabi said the star outline was too thin and looked like something out of MS Paint. Furthermore Mcwolf (Gm) said that the London logo's bottom outline was way thiner than the rest of the logo. Both of these issues I fixed afterwards (don't know if they've been applied to the official logos yet) but it could have been prevented if we had a group of "pros" that second looked everything.

 

3. "Leaks" are unlikely. I haven't been here for too long but I honestly think that if the BOG and Commishs told this board "this is secret, don't tell others" leaks would not happen. I might be too optimistic here, but I believe that no-one in this community would purposely leak a secret logo. 

 

Also huge shoutout to both boubabi and Mcwolf for pointing out the major flaws and letting me know. Also thank you for everyone who gave constructive criticism on why they did or didn't like the new logos.

 

It's 2 in the morning here and I just finished watching cats, so ignore any spelling mistakes, etc.

Edited June 18, 2020 by Da_Berr

[ShawnGlade 1,010]

I like the idea IMO. As a GFX person myself (ish, I'm more into VFX but GFX is something ive been practicing lately) I'd love to do it. Only issue is how do you really select a committee for this? And IMO you really only need 2 extra opinions, if you got like 5+ involved then what's the point? People will vote with the majority

[NotAVHLM-GM 1,858]

Dont think it would be for voting, but more a critique role and check what issues a certain logo would have (like the advise da_berr got from mcwolf/boubabi) to be able to improve it like that.

 

I do like the idea.

[Motzaburger 1,590]

I think this is a wonderful idea. I haven't ever put my thumb on it, but I've always said there needs to be more involvement with graphics decisions on the higher end of the league. 

 

A few pros:

1. Maximize our league gfx quality whether it be a logo, a banner, or whatever
2. Constructive criticism and feedback from more than one person have been working on graphics and know the technicalities (having more than 1-2 reviews would really help with this) The additional rounds of feedback and criticism should be there from multiple points of view from gfx people. For example, makes a logo, someone who has never made more than a Paint graphic comments "It's so amazing this is perfect!" then @gorlab comes along and says "Well.....1), 2), 3), 4), 5), 6), and 7) need to be fixed and that's just the start". If it's for league matters, then we can make sure we don't fall under the latter. 
3. The league could use this BoGFX to do special and "surprise" projects without having to worry about backlash 
4. League could save money from having to go to outside sources
5. GFX people could collab on these projects (collabs could also save time for each person working on it and make them feel less like they need $ or as much TPE)

There are also a few things that could go wrong:

1. Leaks, like Da_berr said
2. The gfx community is not professionals - maybe some oversight or under sight (not too concerned with this as our gfx community is pretty high quality - especially combined across different areas)
3. Process will take longer - collabs even more so

Some questions I would have moving forward for this:

Who do you pick for this? Who judges who should be in here? What is the size of the group?

Job pay? Paid per graphic whether it's feedback/criticism/working on it?

 

Overall, the idea is great and a few details would have to be hashed out. I think the benefit > the risk. The worst case scenario, the league tries it, and then if it doesn't work, stop. I think this "BoGFX" would help make the league look more professional. This would make the league acknowledge the importance and presence of the gfx community to keep things running smoothly around the VHL, as well as draw more people in based on the improved quality I know we would see. 

 

Great idea @Da_Berr 

 

[Da_Berr 219]

@Motzaburger Thanks, great feedback and questions.

 

1. I believe for this job we could have the Commishs/BOG choose a group of candidates (10ish?) and then leave it up to the community to have a poll to narrow it down to who the majority thinks is qualified. I would say max this would be 6 people, and min it would be 3. 

 

2. This would def be a job paid per graphic. Since sometimes the league has long periods without anything happening, and sometimes we have a huge event that happens in a short span (Ex. the four team expansion). Feel like the person doing the actual graphic gets more TPE than those doing feedback, (though everyone still gets TPE) since they would be doing more work generally. 

 

This is all just hypotheticals (and my opinion), some older members may come up with better ideas since they've been around longer.

[Motzaburger 1,590]

@boubabi ofc would be an honorable member who is always welcome and could drop in for some friendly feedback

[Beketov 9,022]

2 hours ago, Motzaburger said:

Constructive criticism and feedback from more than one person have been working on graphics and know the technicalities (having more than 1-2 reviews would really help with this) The additional rounds of feedback and criticism should be there from multiple points of view from gfx people. For example, makes a logo, someone who has never made more than a Paint graphic comments "It's so amazing this is perfect!"

FWIW I don’t mind entertaining this suggestion because it certainly seems interesting but what exactly do you mean by this? It’s not as if @Quik and I have 0 graphics experience and no clue what we’re talking about. I don’t know if it’s your intention but it comes off very “the people who decided these logos know. I thing about GFX” which isn’t true.

 

I trust I’m just reading it wrong?

[Motzaburger 1,590]

2 minutes ago, Beketov said:

FWIW I don’t mind entertaining this suggestion because it certainly seems interesting but what exactly do you mean by this? It’s not as if @Quik and I have 0 graphics experience and no clue what we’re talking about. I don’t know if it’s your intention but it comes off very “the people who decided these logos know. I thing about GFX” which isn’t true.

 

I trust I’m just reading it wrong?

Oh no, not that way at all - I know you and Quik are there for GFX things! It's more for the people who aren't experienced. I know you two are great at graphics, I just know your less involved (I think?) because of all the other crap you guys have going on for the league and what not. 

 

For an example, I'll use a sig I made so I'm not calling out other people's graphics:

 

First comment: 

Quote

That's so f****** pretty....

Gfx person comment:

Quote

I like the start of where you were going. I think there's more that could be done. The main font is interesting (the font type), but I don't think it is well placed,sized. It has a very NHL (the game) ish feeling to it. You could add some line artwork, something "techi", it might be cool. Cold be a great start for a collab (with @gorlab or @wasty maybe)

 

 

Now obviously it's just a sig in this case but just to show how it could be skewed based on gfx experience. A few people in a row giving could lead to something sneaking by without going past you or Quik. I think also, having multiple gfx dudes would be able to discuss feedback/criticism and get several points of view for fixes/improvements or even to show something new and collab by furthering the piece

[Da_Berr 219]

15 minutes ago, Beketov said:

FWIW I don’t mind entertaining this suggestion because it certainly seems interesting but what exactly do you mean by this? It’s not as if @Quik and I have 0 graphics experience and no clue what we’re talking about. I don’t know if it’s your intention but it comes off very “the people who decided these logos know. I thing about GFX” which isn’t true.

 

I trust I’m just reading it wrong?

Sorry if the phrasing makes it seem like I'm saying that. I don't doubt that the BOG/Commishs have alot of GFX experience, but I feel like they're busy people with other league matters to attend to and I'm going off the idea that more feedback from more people = better results. Some people also may give more feedback than others and different feedback on things that others didn't realize before.

Edited June 18, 2020 by Da_Berr

[Beketov 9,022]

10 minutes ago, Da_Berr said:

Sorry if the phrasing makes it seem like I'm saying that. I don't doubt that the BOG/Commishs have alot of GFX experience, but I feel like they're busy people with other league matters to attend to and I'm going off the idea that more feedback from more people = better results. Some people also may give more feedback than others and different feedback on things that others didn't realize before.

Had nothing to do with the OP, was just Motza's response.

 

11 minutes ago, Motzaburger said:

Oh no, not that way at all - I know you and Quik are there for GFX things! It's more for the people who aren't experienced. I know you two are great at graphics, I just know your less involved (I think?) because of all the other crap you guys have going on for the league and what not. 

Alright, copy that. Just thought you were talking about this round of logos specifically which was really just Quik, Beav, me, and the individual GM's. So under that guise it made it sounds like you were saying the people who chose were all GFX noobs who will fawn over anything. Rather it was a more general statement which you aren't completely wrong about. Sometimes the inexperienced won't notice stuff that the more experienced will.

[Motzaburger 1,590]

1 minute ago, Beketov said:

Had nothing to do with the OP, was just Motza's response.

 

Alright, copy that. Just thought you were talking about this round of logos specifically which was really just Quik, Beav, me, and the individual GM's. So under that guise it made it sounds like you were saying the people who chose were all GFX noobs who will fawn over anything. Rather it was a more general statement which you aren't completely wrong about. Sometimes the inexperienced won't notice stuff that the more experienced will.

Yup exactly! And say Gorlab points out one thing but misses another, then you point out one thing, then whoever else sees one thing, etc. Then together the board would collectively ensure it's relatively as good as it can be from the feedback and what not

[boubabi 4,725]

The foundation of the idea is good, but I don't think the VHL has the ressource to execute perfectly the idea.

 

First of all, even though some member has some logo design basic knowledge, we arent really tooled like a professional graphic designer. Even if the logo was perfect, some people won't like it for some reason. From my VHL experience, people are afraid of changes and would rather keep something familiar but ugly than new and superior (see the calgary logo)

 

From my stand of view, I would consider the criticism of 1 professional logo designer over the opinion of 100 members with no experience with that. I know we like to think its part of the democratic process, but it really shouldn't for those type of things

 

In my opinion, if we want to take a step further in branding those teams, all teams should have :

 

1. the official ai logo available for download

2. an official color scheme for jersey and shits

3. an official typeface/ logotype for the franchise

4. a secondary logo/secondary jersey

 

all those in vector formats of course

 

So if that's the goal of the committee, why not. But otherwise, I think its quite hard to give feedback when everyone has their own (even though they might not be good ones)

 

Edited June 18, 2020 by boubabi

[Beketov 9,022]

2 hours ago, boubabi said:

otherwise, I think its quite hard to give feedback when everyone has their own (even though they might not be good ones)

You’ve inadvertently hit the nail on the head for why we kept the expansion logos from the BoG. Miami’s expansion alone took over a month of back and forth on the logo because of differing opinions. 4 logos was not going to happen in a timely fashion.

[Motzaburger 1,590]

3 hours ago, Beketov said:

You’ve inadvertently hit the nail on the head for why we kept the expansion logos from the BoG. Miami’s expansion alone took over a month of back and forth on the logo because of differing opinions. 4 logos was not going to happen in a timely fashion.

I will say, in my opinion, the Miami one is the best of them all

 

[Beketov 9,022]

6 hours ago, Motzaburger said:

I will say, in my opinion, the Miami one is the best of them all

 

Agreed but most of the discussion was about different routes to go, not directly related to what we got.

[Beketov 9,022]

I will say this, @boubabi brings up a good point in regards to a “too many cooks in the kitchen” situation so I would want to probably keep the group relatively small but I am okay with the idea of a specific GFX crew for the league. I would think probably 3-4 people and then the commish team to over-see it? Don’t see a reason to make it larger than that, would just end up with opinions overstepping each other.

[boubabi 4,725]

Fuck the commish comin' straight from the underground