Help with Ninja Logo

[tonerninja]

Hi,

I'm trying to design a logo for my e-commerce store, but it looks a bit rubbish to be honest. The logo needs to have the name of the site ('Toner Ninja') and the Ninja character.

I'm happy with the character, but not the rest of the logo -

TonerNinja

Can anyone suggest a better font? Or a better way of doing the logo? Too be honest I just picked a big bold font and added some shadow and outline effects, so it looks a bit amateurish.

Please be gentle, I'm not a graphic designer...

[Paul Murray]

I love the little ninja character. I doubt he would work on his own as a logo though, particularly when scaled down (though he could possibly work in black and white with some adjustment)

As for the text, for me the red is not what I'd associate with a ninja (unless you count blood). I'd lose the outline and drop shadow effects and have a solid colour, possible a dark grey-blue, like the colour of the ninja, but not too similar in case they merge (although that is a possibility, since ninja hide in the shadows, so I've heard).

A little more spacing between the words would help legibility, or moving the character to the right after the word 'ninja', as well as moving the whole image to the right slightly so that it's not sat at the edge of the web page.

I kind of want the ninja character to be interacting with the text somehow, maybe taking a chunk out of a letter, 'slashing' it like the tagline suggests, though this could end up complicating the whole design.

[tonerninja]

I kind of want the ninja character to be interacting with the text somehow, maybe taking a chunk out of a letter, 'slashing' it like the tagline suggests, though this could end up complicating the whole design.

Funny you should say that, if you look at the bottom of any product page there is a slashy ninja above the tagline.

The problem with the characters is that I paid an artist for them and I only have a limited number of 'poses'. And the one in the logo is the only one suitable giventhe size and shape restrictions.

Being a site logo rather than a standard site logo does provide a number of restrictions -

it needs to be short and wide, quite small so as not to take up half the page at lower resolutions, not too much the same colours as they may merge on some displays, must still be ledgible when reduced to very small sizes (for shopping feeds etc), and stand out in a crowd (again in the shopping feeds)

Having the ninja character does complicate this - given the restrictions above a simple, bright single coloured logo tends to be best. But having said that, with the theme of the site it really needs to be ninja based.

Being an ecommerce site does also limit the design options somewhat - the site would be best on a black background for example, but that's a big no-no from a design/usability point of view.

I'll have a play around with the font colours in photoshop and see what it looks like.

Any ideas on fonts though? What I really want is a sort of slashy font that would look good in blood red. Having a quick look around, something like this font -

http://www.tamilgood.com/movies/wp-c...che-France.jpg

Also shown here in blood, though maybe a bit too gory for an office supplies store!

Alpiez CollectionZ: Ninja Assassin (top left)

[sweetums]

I know it's a different style of art, but it might be worth taking a look at the WooThemes website as they use a ninja character as there site mascot to great affect.

[tonerninja]

Sure, I had several different styles to choose from but this was the best. So the character is pretty much set in stone now, it's just the text that goes with it I need help with. At the time I just pretty much picked a random font, so not much thought went into it...

[spottypenguin]

I don't knwo what those fonts are that you have linked to; it's possible they could even be graphics rather than actual fonts.

Have a look here though TypeNow.net Themed Fonts Download Free Movie and Music Fonts

Mars Attacks may do you.. or one of the others

[tonerninja]

hmm... nice fonts, but it looks a little risky - could be opening myself up to copyright issues...?

[matobo]

You could go for a more chinese-looking font in keeping with your ninja theme, but you will have to make sure it is legible and in sync with your heavy/solid graphic style. I actually like what you have there already by the way - maybe minus the drop shadow on the wording....

30 Useful and Free Chinese-Styled Fonts | Naldz Graphics

[tonerninja]

Nice, I'll give some of those a try and see how it looks.

Why does everyone have such a downer on shadows by the way? They look cool to me!

[spottypenguin]

Cos we're a snobby, ultra-trendy lot and drop shadows are soooooooooo 80s