Designing around an Awkward Logo

mrDerek

Member
Hi, I've been stressing over this for quite some time, was wondering whether if you can show me the light :x

Background
I've been working with this company for half a year now as a placement student, generally doing a lot of design and web stuff. Lately I've been working on migrating their current portal to a Joomla! portal which means for me to make them a whole new template...

Problem
Now the problem lies with their logo. I personally think it was designed very sloppy-(erly?)... but it was the Assisstant Managers' son who designed it so... what can you do eh?
logo

Does anyone here think that logo works?

I'm really struggling with the look and feel of the template and how I could intergrate the logo into it... I just can't seem to do anything that works.
The colours are horrible... well the colours themselves aren't too bad, it just stops any other colour from working with it...
The shape... it's like it's trying to be a circle... but failing horribly... Now it's just a blob... with no lines and shape to work with...

I've played with a few set ups but all seem way too playful. Playful doesn't work here...


So yeah... Can anyone show me the light? any ideas...? inspirations...?
It's a shame... but redesigning the logo is out of the question. :(

thanks for reading,

Derek
 
I think it would be helpful if you posted a jpeg of the template design so we can see how the logo works or not in the context of the design structure. Then we can offer advice to solve your problem when we know the full picture.

I have always said turn a negative into a postitive ( BoL for you guys!) spin the problem on its head and use the poorest thing you have a key point. Don't try and disguise it, work with it and use what it has. Otherwise you will have two conflicting areas.
 
yeah, it's not great - but ive definitely seen worse! the colors too - why not use the blue as a main accent colour and just keep the yellow for the odd link here and there..?
 
To me the issue would be that the size its displayed at there is basically the minimum size it can be for the text to remain readable, the problem is the size of the 'icon' in comparison to the text.

Still I've seen a lot worse! I think you could make it work
 
I think that the layout they have now is rather good; it's simple, clean and corporate. The header (from their current site) is bad and the way they display their content definitely needs work. But I think you should stick to that style; header image, simple sidebar and simple content display.

The header you showed is indeed too playful, and probably too big. If you go with that header, you should resize the logo to fit into the rectangle instead of having it go over everything.
 
I'm sorry, maybe I'm not being clear enough.

It's not really the layout I'm having trouble with, more so the general look and feel, and having it work with the logo. The banner I knocked together was intended to be dynamic since the screen resolutions hitting our site range from 800 x 600 to enormous sizes.

Also if you haven't noticed, our logo is odd shaped and will not fit comfortably into a rectangle, or any other shape as a matter of fact. That seems to be my biggest problem... not having a shape or any lines to work with...
 
i know this sounds backwards but maybe you should design the layout first, keep the colour palette of the logo in mind and design a layout to suit the client - then just whack the logo in wherever it will look best ;) not exactly the regular way of doing it but if you finding the logo to be that big a stumbling block it might help?
 
you think you have it bad I'm doing a site for a certain airline where they want orange everywhere... bet you cant guess which airline I'm talking about... I'd say do the concept with the logo and then show the client the problems it gives. Then show then a design with a quick mock up of a more "normal logo" and how much better it works. Not a logo designer but heres one i did in 2 mins.
 

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I understand totally where you are coming from, it's all psychological! When you have a 'not too good-looking' logo sitting on your screen it really puts you off!

You keep looking at it and thinking 'that logo is appalling' which has the psychological effect of creating a crap design.

One solution is to cover the logo with a box so you know the shape and clearance area and get on with designing something nice, or just use text (which they've actually done on the current site), then drop the logo in when you've finished, at the end of the day it's about getting the job done and getting paid. Another solution might be to just have a white header and then content is boxed in underneath, that way it doesnt matter if site elements aren't integrating with the logo, the logo is just sitting by itself at the top.

*Chuckles* Your client also seems to come from the school of 'lets use the logo as a bullet point' and plaster it everywhere we can.

Good luck
 
mrDerek said:
Here's something i knocked together Banner, To me this is way too playful but thats the only look I can get to work...

This is a little off topic but its something that anoys me, if your going to use double strokes on a fillet (rounded corner) you need to change the radius for each stroke otherwise they wont be paralell to each other, If you look on your rounded corners they are thicker in places than they are supposed to be, this is because a radius works from a centre point, as the arc around this point (the fillet) becomes further away, you need to add that extra distance onto the radius.

Inside fillet radius 10 (line with 4 px)
Outside fillet radius 14 (to allow for the line width)

OR

Use two strokes, but one 4px wider than the other and layered behind the other one, that'll create the same effect.

Its the little things that make the biggest difference (probably stolen from BOL)

Does that make sense? anyways, good luck with the project.
 
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