I was working on my company profile on CGTalk the other day, and I needed to submit a small logo for the profile, so I used my splash screen, but then I noticed that it seemed a bit hard to read and busy for such a small image.
I thought maybe the outline on the company name needed to be a bit thicker for the small size, so I started with that, but quickly found that didn't make it look better.
Anyway, after a whole lot of tweaking, I ended up with this.
You'll notice I removed the planet and trees. I was never happy with those trees, and that whole bottom part just made the image too busy and drew your attention there instead of to the logo. You'll also notice the smoke trail is sharp now. That's how it was when I got it, and I think it results in a cleaner image. And the black bars are gone. Those just looked cheesy.
I also did some tweaking of the brightness and color. The word Raccoon is a bit brighter now, the clouds are brighter and blue-er so they look more like part of the background, and I fixed a slight color cast and increased the brightness on the raccoon itself. (I now have a Huey color calibrator for my monitor, so I no longer have to guess as to whether the color cast is due to my aging monitor or my inability to correct it by eye.)
Anyway, I think it now looks a lot cleaner and brighter overall, and the changes combined with the added drop shadow on the text make it quite readable at the smaller size.
(Click for fullszie image.)
Old splash screen/logo:
New splash screen/logo:
I thought maybe the outline on the company name needed to be a bit thicker for the small size, so I started with that, but quickly found that didn't make it look better.
Anyway, after a whole lot of tweaking, I ended up with this.
You'll notice I removed the planet and trees. I was never happy with those trees, and that whole bottom part just made the image too busy and drew your attention there instead of to the logo. You'll also notice the smoke trail is sharp now. That's how it was when I got it, and I think it results in a cleaner image. And the black bars are gone. Those just looked cheesy.
I also did some tweaking of the brightness and color. The word Raccoon is a bit brighter now, the clouds are brighter and blue-er so they look more like part of the background, and I fixed a slight color cast and increased the brightness on the raccoon itself. (I now have a Huey color calibrator for my monitor, so I no longer have to guess as to whether the color cast is due to my aging monitor or my inability to correct it by eye.)
Anyway, I think it now looks a lot cleaner and brighter overall, and the changes combined with the added drop shadow on the text make it quite readable at the smaller size.
(Click for fullszie image.)
Old splash screen/logo:
New splash screen/logo:
