PL logo revisited

[photoken]

I wanted a vector rendition of the PL logo, but all I could find was a low resolution bitmap image.

So, I started messing around. It was good practice and I learned some things about working with PL.

Here's the result, against a harmonious gradient background:

PL logo 02.png

You can see the following changes I made:

• Instead of creating the look of a glossy button, I simplified the effect by using a simple inner emboss.
• I changed the font to Bauhaus93 because it's a more stylized font than PL uses, yet the Bauhaus93 font is very readable, even when this logo is viewed at 2% magnification. Also, I wanted a very heavy weight font that would not be overwhelmed by the embossing effect.
• I added a simple inner emboss to the letters.
• I adjusted the gradient on the colour bars to more clearly express light coming from above.
• I applied a Curves adjustment to the colour bars, using Lab mode to reduce the gamma in order to make the colours less intense and distracting.

Here's the PLD file of the logo itself:

PL logo.pld

Enjoy!

[Falaffel]

Hy Ken,

looks very nice.

[Torsten]

It looks very old fashioned.

Cheers Torsten

[Hoogo]

Yes, old fashioned, but in a very pleasing way
Not in the way "unchanged for 20 years", but in the "retro" way that makes a bottle of 70's Fanta look pleasing today.

[gmhofmann]

Wrong abbreviation. Please make "PL" instead of "Pl"

[Torsten]

Yes, a brand like Fanta can ever bring a retro bottle on the market. But hardly a PL users will say oh cool that have revived the old logo of the time.

Cheers,
Torsten

[photoken]

Wrong abbreviation. Please make "PL" instead of "Pl"

Nope. That's the all caps in the Bauhaus93 font. Here's a comparison between the lowercase and uppercase:

bauhaus.png

[photoken]

Yes, old fashioned, but in a very pleasing way

My thoughts, exactly. I know the current trend is for extremely simple rendering of logos, but that looks kind of crude and somewhat boring to me. On the other hand, the former trend of throwing all kinds of effects at a logo, making it look like glossy glassware was too much, and rather distracting.

Just trying to find a balance.

[Martin Stricker]

Ich bin froh, dass ich die PL-Icons die ich entworfen hatte nicht mehr zur Nutzung frei gegeben habe. Was mich aber erschreckt ist, dass dieses redesign sogar gefallen findet. Bleibt mir nur noch die Hoffnung, dass es nicht verwendet wird.
Sorry, couldn't write this in english.

@ photoken
Your redesign is unbalanced and clumsily.
What about doing a new design with your own ideas?

Martin

[photoken]

Martin,
You're utterly and completely wrong about everything, but thanks for playing, anyway.

[laienspieler]

Ich bin froh, dass ich die PL-Icons die ich entworfen hatte nicht mehr zur Nutzung frei gegeben habe. Was mich aber erschreckt ist, dass dieses redesign sogar gefallen findet. Bleibt mir nur noch die Hoffnung, dass es nicht verwendet wird.
...
Martin

Ich teile diese Hoffnung.

[Herbert123]

Sorry Ken, although I appreciate the effort, I would have to agree with some of the other opinions shared here that that logo design looks less than ideal. The font choice reminds me of a seventies style, and the layer effect does not help either...

Having said that, I applaud a rethink of the current logo - especially the one on the website and at the top of this forum. Which is quite terrible indeed. Someone needs to start this discussion, so why not here?

[photoken]

I applaud a rethink of the current logo - especially the one on the website and at the top of this forum. Which is quite terrible indeed. Someone needs to start this discussion, so why not here?

Because I carefully chose the subject of this discussion -- it's revisiting the original logo. In other words, I think the original logo is nice, and has some good features, so I created a variation on the original theme.

By all means start a discussion about a logo re-design, but make it in its own discussion (probably in the General Discussion forum). Rest assured that I'll submit this variation there, too.

[photoken]

The font choice reminds me of a seventies style,

Good eye -- That's because Bauhaus93 was designed circa 1970, based on typeface designs first proposed in 1925. You seem to be implying that this is a bad thing. Why?

For the billions of people who do not pay attention to the history of typography, the letters will simply be accepted as clean, bold, stylized text.

For those who are aware of the history of typography, the use of Bauhaus93 should be seen as an homage to the German origins of PL, and as adding a richness of meaning to the logo.

and the layer effect does not help either...

I'll take another look at that.

[photoken]

OK, I've fine-tuned the logo (here displayed against a harmonious gradient background):

PL logo 02.jpg

The inner emboss on the letters was too subtle, and looked kind of weak, so I boosted its strength.

For the roundel, I lowered the strength of the highlight, and increased the strength of the shadow (which was not very obvious in my first rendition).

I did much more to the colour bars: used a light gray for the gradient's highlight; changed the midpoints of the gradients so the bars look more rounded; and lowered their contrast.

All of that created a clearer distinction of the importance of the elements -- the letters are now obviously the dominant element, the roundel is sub-dominant; and the colour bars are subordinate.

The logo also is very readable at very small sizes when used as an icon,

PL logo icon.png

but an interesting effect occurred when reducing the logo: the embossing effects disappeared at those very small sizes and left the letters looking off-center. Since the embossing effects are layer styles, it was quick and easy to temporarily disable the embossing effects when reducing the size.

Here's the updated PLD file:

PL logo.pld