Thread: Any advice ?

Ok well i am 15 and have just started in GFX, luckily i already got a job other from a gym, they asked me to design a logo that contained a barbarian pouring molten metal, since it is my first time doing major GFX could you give any feedback or advice ??
Any help appreciated cheers :)

http://i1218.photobucket.com/albums/...FX/gymlogo.jpg

Hey TwistzzGFX,

Firstly, welcome to the forum, I hope you can find some help here. This post is probably in the wrong section though, I get the feeling it should possibly be in the logo section?

In regards to the work, one of the first things I would do would be to research logos, then, more specifically gym logos.

Some of the things you should pick up on looking at them are the size of logos, they work big as well as small, they also work in flat black colours and are drawn up on a vector based programme. Imagine scaling what you've designed down? You'd lose all the detail and it'd become unrecognisable.

Also, did you draw the barbarian yourself? If you did, well done, that's a great skill to have, if you didn't, where abouts did you get it from? Just curious.

Something else I would approach is maybe going to the client and suggesting that this isn't the best route for them to go down. If they've hired you and your design services, it's your job to help guide them to the best solution, and this overly complicated illustrative feel just doesn't work I don't think.

Sorry if I sound overly critical and harsh, but there's a lot of work to be done here. Stick around, pick up some tips and advice and never stop trying.

Cheers,
Tony

My advice (and very stern advice I must add) would be to not use other people's work and try and pass it off as your own. It is not legal to do so and breaches copyright law. The barbarian you use is from the front cover of a book called "By this axe I Rule" by Tom Stewart, available on Amazon here:

By This Axe I Rule, Conan and the Battle for the Legacy of Robert E. Howard: Amazon.co.uk: Tom Stewart: Books

You can also see the original artwork on the artists DeviantArt Page here:

JoeJusko's deviantART Gallery

Who I am sure wouldn't be best pleased to see his artwork being used as a gym logo.

All the points the above poster has mentioned are valid - the logo must work at small sizes, you need to keep it simple, and oh, yes, it needs to be YOUR OWN WORK. You will not get far ripping people off. People notice

Are they paying you for this work? And how long have you been into Graphic Design?

Hi, thanks for all of your advice, i can see where you are coming from dave, its just that i am new to graphic design, i mean very new, i started of as a GFX designer on youtube and have grown to more professional graphics, so it is a large leap, and i am sorry i will be discarding the image of the barbarian, i had completely forgot about copy-write laws :( How do you guys get your images and how do you know if they are copy-write or not ? and i am getting paid and this is the first graphic design i have done outer than youtube backgrounds and desktop wallpapers.
cheers

Most graphics are the property of their creators or the people they were created for. There are some free graphics resources on the web but you must read the small print, i.e. some are free for 'non-commercial use' meaning you can't resell them. Other resources you can pay for a commercial use license and then you are good to go.

We make our own images normally? Or hire illustrators and people we trust to come up with things we commission. I'd definitely have a look at other gym logos and the like before departing on this project :)

Thanks alot guys, cheers corrosive any sites you could recommend and i am not the best drawer to be honest thats kinda why i went down the graphic design route not the artist route, i might actually give it a go though cheers and doing the research now, cheers for the advice guys great forum

The best advice I can give is to do as much as you can yourself. That way you know that you aren't stepping on anyones toes. By all means research other designers and styles but use them as inspiration ONLY. Don't try to copy someone's style, but try to create your own and make sure you can adapt to different clients needs.

To get on in graphic design you need to stick to simple rather than over complicate things. Thats how you can tell the graphic designers from the 'Paint' designers.

All the best.

As a very quick lesson in copyright it basically goes, if you did something from scratch, you own the copyright, if someone else did it, they own it. Copyright is something automatically given to the creator upon creation, and is only available to others if the creator chooses to put it under a creative commons licence, or sell it on for a fee.

Now, if the gym want a barbarian and you can't draw one then you either need to a) come up with some way of convincing them that another option might work (backed up with examples) or b) get an illustrator involved.

Personally I think having a barbarian in such detail as your original post is no good as a logo, it needs to be much more simplified so more easily recognisable as a "symbol" of that gym. You then need to design the typographical part of the logo to compliment whatever graphic is chosen.

Finally, you should really be working in Adobe Illustrator when creating a logo, because if the day should come when the gym want to put their logo on a sign, banner, side of a van, massive advert at the side of a boxing ring etc. then a vector can be scaled up. Something created in photoshop is only ever going to be able to go as big as the original you create and it's going to mean you coming stuck in the future.