So, I'm pretty good at working with existing pictures, etc, but I'm about as creative as a brick, LOL
I have a band which released two albums in the early '90's. We have re-grouped and found that our promo material is dated to say the least. We need a new logo first before we can do anything else.
I found that our old 8-bit logo we paid a fortune to have hand-drawn and scanned back then isn't cutting it. The task of re-inventing our logo has fallen to me, and beyond liking a font style or two I'm at a loss.
Does anyone want to take a crack at a custom logo design for us? It will be used on flyers/website/promo for now, but might even make it onto our next record if we're crazy about it. I'm guessing we'd need a clear logo, and also something we can readily transfer to promo material, web page, etc.

If you have Gimp, I really like the Georgia font, and Times Roman was good too as I remember... We want something strong, bold simple, and easy to read. Something that isn't dependent on color, as we want to use different colors as needed, or go clear or black and white. We aren't really big on flowing, airy, fancy stuff.
Any takers?

How's this for starters?


Use the coloring layers in the xcf (either in "multiply" or "overlay" mode) to color any way you wish, eg.

Pretty cool you guys, thank you!
I'm just starting to mess around with my own thing. It's in Georgia font. I keep coming back to that style. Kinda Times Roman but not exactly...
I finally figured out to make the text into an image, and do a drop shadow using another layer... but that's about it. I'd like to figure out how to make it transparent/glassy looking(?) colors, 3D, etc... I'm assuming I need to figure out paths, color layers, etc.

Another, with a different color sweep, and made a little transparent...

Oh, gotta figure out how to do it as a vector rather than raster too, LOL

For glass effect you could try <Image>Script-Fu>Effects Selection>Glass Selection

If you haven't got that script its available here (with all the rest of Paul Sherman's considerable collection):
http://www.gimphelp.org/scripts/effects ... tion.shtml

eg:

Sounds like you might want to check out Inkscape for vector graphics.

as well as a nice text, you might think about Wallace's idea of adding a graphic symbol to it, makes it more memorable and even a very simple graphic addition can make a big difference in impact.

Was afraid you were going to say "Inkscape." What's the learning curve like?

Well...
If you've never used Inkscape before. You may be able to create some basic text first time out, but anything more would take some time to figure out.
Using paths in Gimp can only get you so far and learning to use Gimp's path tool is another issue. If you really need scalable graphics, Inkscape is the software to use.

I think Wallace is right .. if you need output in vector graphics (for printing & publishing) then you're going to have to start in vector graphics (you can't start in raster and convert to vector later ..it just doesn't work!) And that means using Inkscape or some other vector-based graphics package right from the outset.

Inkscape is pretty good and learning curve not too steep ..you'll recognise many of the tools from Gimp but it will take some learning.

Something different, the Chinese characters portray Zen according to wiki. I cannot guarantee this but all indo chinese symbols look very similar. In any case it is only a layer ,easily disposed of .I tried to stick to very fundamental colours (3) so printing costs can be minimised for all applications.

so how about a super simple idea... text in your georgia font and some radio waves graphics (looks like the wifi graphic but sideways, either on both sides or just one side) behind...black and white, using white outlines to delineate where black ends up on black. I have to run off to work or I would try it myself.

I like the rising sun logo, great color, and it looks very 'retro.' I can see that on a T-Shirt.

The radio waves idea sounds promising.

Thank you for the glass plug-in, that makes it much easier than trying to do transparency and gradients...

It seems that the vast majority of band logos out there use text only. In other words no symbols or flair in addition, like a company logo would.

I'm thinking design in Gimp - with which I'm familiar and then take that final to a professional, or someone else who knows Inkscape. It took me a couple months to get the basics down in Gimp, I'm still trying to get familiar with LTSPICE (electronics designer) I really don't want to learn MORE software...

Do you want a simple idea only text black and white? Here a very simple idea. I used Georgia font as you like.
Sure that someone could do it more nice, please, feel free to modify any thing.

This is the one I created in Gimp, Inkscape and Blender.

They are all nice but lean toward the one from Wallace with the enso Zen Buddhism logo

I have a concern about the font plus the logo. Aren't there fees concerning the font? The logo is a for a commercial enterprise. Shouldn't there be fees for that?