Critique my Logo!

[Karl]

The colors are NOT random but rather are a key site feature. Using shades of these 5 colors and grey, the users will more easily navigate various dimensions of the site. I know it sounds complex, but it will be COMPLETELY intuitive and actually simplify what is going on, and so don't worry about that. Point is, I need 5 different colors and these colors seem to be most easily differentiated between... but there is a problem.

Hopefully I won't get in trouble for quoting what could be taken as hate speech, but when I showed it to my ex she said, "That looks really, REALLY gay." To that I responded, "So? I have no problem with it looking gay..." but to that she replied, "No, Karl, REALLY, REALLY GAY. The rainbow colors thing has been done before, and no one will want to go to your website if that is your logo. Like, REALLY, REALLY GAY - it looks like the logo is for some gay pride thing."

I was like, "whatever..." but do you all think that this is a problem? I mean, I have no problem with it being "gay," but it is supposed to give-off multi-dimensional vibes rather than alternative-lifestyle vibes. And if I mute the colors, then it will be more difficult to differentiate between them. And I definitely want red-yellow-green because those have already entered the zeitgeist as meaning stop/yield/go; bad/neutral/good.

But, anyways, all feedback is welcome. And I mean, do you think I should scratch the logo altogether? The site that it is for is hard to explain without giving away too much. But, wikipedia + google answers + livejournal + flickr = the sort of feel I am aiming for.

[limezor]

I like the red, green, and blue, but not the pink and yellow. The logo looks good when it doesn't have the rest of the words too.

In my opinion, it's a great idea, change a couple of things and remake it in Photoshop/GIMP and you will have a great logo!

[Karl]

So you just think that I should ditch the yellow and the purple? What other things need changing? And I'm not sure if I know how to make it in photoshop - I pretty much just use mspaint. <__< But I guess I could learn. But thank you for the feedback! I feel like I still need quite a bit more though...

[limezor]

Yeah, if you really want your web designs to look good, use something other the Paint.

Other then that the main design is really good.

[VanessaJW]

I don't think it immediately strikes as being a gay pride symbol, although like you say, nothing wrong with that except that you don't want people misinterpreting what your site is about. The gay pride rainbow flag has orange in it also which yours doesn't, and the pinky colour usually leans more towards purple, so I would say lighten the pink to a more baby pink to differentiate it further.

If you haven't used Photoshop before, and aren't sure if you want to make the investment, you could download Gimp as was suggested which is free to download and try that out, it's similar to Photoshop - not as good, but excellent value for money

[sannbe]

I like the design and the colors. My concern is they look a little washed out. It would really pop if the colors were I guess you would call it absolute, sharp, solid....I hope that makes sense and you can visualize it. That would give the logo a real pop in my opinion.

[MikeHopley]

The text is nice.

My immediate reaction, if I'm honest, is that it reminds me of the old television channel test cards.

(Mummy, make the clown go away!)

[VanessaJW]

HaHa Mike, you're showing your age there! Oh...hang on...you're 10 years younger than me

[Karl]

Wow, that is a lot of feedback! And thank you very, very much for it!

Originally Posted by sannbe

I like the design and the colors. My concern is they look a little washed out. It would really pop if the colors were I guess you would call it absolute, sharp, solid....I hope that makes sense and you can visualize it. That would give the logo a real pop in my opinion.

I don't really understand what you are saying... can you explain this in a different way? How are they not sharp? Do you mean, so that there aren't several different shades of each color?

[sannbe]

I think it is called saturated colors, pure colors.

[Karl]

Originally Posted by sannbe

I think it is called saturated colors, pure colors.

I guess that it's just that I am confused - I used hex codes to make the most yellowish-yellow possible, and the most purple-ish-purple possible, etc. And then people call the purple pink, and then you say to make them more solid? Am I missing something format wise? I know that certain colors appear differently on different monitors, but I thought that the primaries were pretty solid/uniform...

[planescape]

My advice would be like most people have said, to remake it in photoshop. I also think that its very generic. The font if I am not mistaken is Stencil?

Also the problem with paint is that it doesnt give a nice crisp line, Also if its a logo your best off creating it in a vector program. That way you can make it as big or as small as you like without losing any quality.

If you want any help in re-creating this in vector then just let me know

[mad samuel]

my first thought: ms paint.

clean it up a little, neat idea.

[ioncube]

Looks an interesting logo. I'm not sure if this is relevant for you, but if I read the stats correctly, approaching 10% of males have red-green colour blindness - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_blindness - such that distinguishing red and green hues is difficult. The big oval has obvious jaggies whereas the main text is nicely antialiased, and I wonder how the logo looks when reduced significantly in size for website use (probably nice but I just wondered . If you intend to have business cards or letter heads made then designing for print is something else to consider. Lastly, not everyone has their monitors configured well, and being able to distinguish too many different shades of the same colour may be asking a lot for some users if this is required; e.g. on my laptop at some places on the screen I can hardly tell between the two brightest blue squares. None of this may actually be any issue in practice, but things to be aware of though.

[VanessaJW]

That's a good point actually, from an accessibility point of view, being able to differentiate between colors shouldn't be the only way to identify and move around different parts of the site. Although this can easily be dealt with by having an alternative to color identification available also. Just something to keep in mind.

[Karl]

Color blindness is actually something that I've already thought about - you don't NEED to see which color is which, but rather, the different colors are simply to make it easier to tell which column a line is in. it is moreso intensity that matters, and so to help color blind people I was thinking of having a shades thing with each line having it's own symbol. But that isn't something I'm going to worry about for a long time - there are a lot of other issues I need to take care of first. Thanks for pointing that out though!

[VanessaJW]

Ok, but also keep in mind having a text alternative as well, different shades won't help people who use a screen-reader.

Keep us posted on the development of this site, it all sounds very interesting!