Decentralizing SaidIt

submitted by JasonCarswell from infogalactic.com

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[–]magnora7 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (41 children)

If you want to make mock-up images, go for it

I'm not sure what the font name was, I looked for 20 mins. I think I could find it eventually if you really want it

[–]JasonCarswell[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (40 children)

I would really like it for historical purposes for the IG article. Beyond that it depends on you...

1) Are you absolutely in love with it, just like it, or just think it's functional?

2) Would you like to maintain consistent familiarity, remain relatively similar, or consider new things?

3) Are there any ideas, concepts, emotions, etc you want it to express, that may or may not be there now? ie. Futuristic, modern, sleek, class, understated, to the point, unfrivolous, etc.

4) Would you be open to just a logo with nothing more - or branding and the seeds of marketing strategies?

(For reference, look at Discord's branding page : https://discordapp.com/branding Naturally SaidIt branding needs are different so you would not get all that and may get more details about other stuff. Further, we could develop some aspects together - like the colour pallet, etc. We could also develop branding goals in stages. For example, the logo today, the CSS and pallet tomorrow, and fancy banners down the road, then a web store and an animation campaign using the banner designs even further beyond.)

But before we go too nuts, let's just answer these questions first. If I've forgotten a good one/some I'll respond again like this. Your answers will guide my next moves. And yours. If you absolutely love the logo then you should find that font. I would rather not waste time and energy on trying to just copy it precisely. If it's not that important that I stick to it I can wing it by eye for some basis to diverge from. For example, to make it easier to read when small or from a distance, I would adjust the kerning, the space between letters, so that the very thin letter "I"s were more easily defined. And that's just if I was staying very close to the original. If you're open to it, I could sketch out a page of ideas that may or may not have hints of the original. The options are endless.

Lemme know. I aim to please.

[–]magnora7 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (39 children)

Well... let's just adjust one thing at a time. No reason to go so crazy with it. Just incremental improvements, that's how saidit was built. You make an improvement, we see if it works. Repeat.

[–]JasonCarswell[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (38 children)

Too late. Sort of. Not really. I just sketched some stuff. I need to either find and install a scanner or wait for a camera battery to charge.

Design can work incrementally too. It also helps if you have goals in mind. I'm going to try and help tease out a branding strategy.

I threw a lot at you. Of all of it, I'd like you to revisit #3 for an answer, if you don't mind. Maybe you don't have one. That's okay too.

[–]magnora7 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (37 children)

For #3 I don't care so much as I just want it to look modern and attractive to normal people. Doing paper sketches probably isn't the best way to approach this... don't you think starting in a digital art program would be better? I just don't want you to invest too much time in to this before we decide to include stuff or not. Small pieces is best

[–]JasonCarswell[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (36 children)

Sketches are MUCH faster to get out some ideas. But they can also seem "sketchy" too and imprecise. It all depends. I'm fast and good so it's no prob. I already did them. Quickly.

Ironically, I just spent hours doing this which I'm not thrilled with - in Photoshop. Sometimes I like symmetry and maths and sometimes it should not apply. This is meh. Sometimes I love pixel art and sometimes it's meh. This one is meh. BUT it would be easy enough to add some geeky animation to make it a groovy pixel GIF. I used 3x3 pixels so it's 300% but I find pixel art looks better at 400%+.

One has the technical symmetry marks : https://infogalactic.com/info/File:SaidIt_Bold_Pixelized300%25_DotNet_FanArt_Technical_561x99.png

And the other is the cleaned up plain SaitIt.net bold logo adaptation : https://infogalactic.com/info/File:SaidIt_Bold_Pixelized300%25_DotNet_FanArt_561x99.png

The "A" is the worst casualty, and it needs to slide over 1 pixel towards the "I". I don't mind wasting time to find out what doesn't work. It's not terrible but it's not good either. It's meh.

My sketches have more promise.

All these images will be in the https://infogalactic.com/info/SaidIt gallery until it gets too much and will need it's own gallery page which will be linked from this main article. Like the table there will similarly be moved off the main article.

I forgot to also mention that if you want to be conservative with incremental improvements it's be ideal to gave that font.

[–]magnora7 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (35 children)

I'm going to be very honest with you here, I don't think we want to go in a pixel-art direction with saidit. People have already complained that it looks outdated and unpolished, and the pixel-art look (especially if not done absolutely perfectly) would just play in to that. We're really looking for stuff more modern and visually friendly to the widest range of users, like I said. I appreciate the effort, but this isn't the right direction sorry.

[–]JasonCarswell[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (34 children)

I agree 1,000,000%. I just thought it'd be fun should someone want a "oldskool" sub banner or whatever. It would also be fun to do animated gifs on.

It started with the Dot Net addition being in pixels.

Of the half dozen sketches I have for you, I feel I can share 2. 1 is just for fun, in part because it's not what you're after, understandably so, but is fun and I can critique it after I figure out this fucking Sony camera software shite. The other may not be a final design but it's very promising and familiar and with some adjustments and vectorizing, might be worthy. I have another in mind that I might bash out too.

[–]magnora7 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (33 children)

Okay sounds good. Whenever you're ready to share them, let me know

[–]JasonCarswell[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (31 children)

Never got the old no-longer supported software working but I hacked it.

So I'm not even close to happy with it but it's a start. The camera flash was too much and without it not enough. I pushed and pulled the image. It's just a sketch but you get the idea.

https://infogalactic.com/info/File:SaidIt.net_Free_Speech_Bubble_Rounded_Rectangle_-_50%25Rez_-_1500x700_-_DSC02776.png

1) I love the frame. I drew the left side like the squared right side but the clip, shadow, and Photoshopping makes it look ovoid on the left. I like both a lot, but really prefer the squared right side with rounded corners. I like the 1-unit wide thickness of the outline. It's mathematically consistent with most of the lettering, but more so it is a bold feature and integral part of the logo and branding. That said, it would be folly not to experiment with options, ie. half as thick, or just a different background colour.

2) I squared the letters more to be less futurist-mod-flattened. Except the "S" which can easily be made to match.

3) The "S" came to me while sketching it. I feel like there's some similar "S" logo out there but I don't know where.

4) Finding the best "A" angle will take refining. 45 degrees (like on the pixel version) is too broad. This one is more like an equilateral triangle which seems too narrow - or maybe that's just because I'm used to it wider and because I compressed the kerning (space between letters) around it.

5) I like the slightly thicker "I"s thought in the "bolder" font it's not really as necessary.

6) The "D" I'm meh about. It loks better large but when small adds confusion. I'm almost tempted to do something like the sideways "D" in the Disinfo logo. I think simply adding part of the vertical "back" like the original logo - but with an angle like on the top of the "I" would likely be best.

7) The "T" is terrific.

8) The "Dot Net" could be in this same custom font, or just super simple (like the pixel version except for the pixellated "N" diagonal). While it may seem like a trivial matter, I think this demands a lot of attention to get the proportions just right. When large enough I want folks to easily read "Dot Net" and when too small I want folks to see an exclamation mark, and most importantly in between the large and small I want there to be as little room for blurred confusion as possible - preferably none.

If you like I could easily invert it to show how it would look with light text on a dark background.

Also, I can do a version without the bubble, or change the bubble style (there are countless variations possible, more than you think that might be suitable or even preferable).

One more thing I'd like you to imagine if you will, and I can easily mock up for you if you react favourably to this - is a truncated version. Imagine everything in the bubble gone, except the "S" and an "I" and an exclamation mark - and the bubble would be fitted around them. This "SI!" truncated "logo/icon" of sorts could be a mini-logo used on square buttons, faveicons, ballcaps, whatever. The con to this idea is that you might start getting users that don't speak English. But at least it's a positive word in other languages.

I have another one in mind that I don't yet know if I can pull off in a way to beat this one. Essentially you'd have the "SAIDIT" text, either the original or my new design, or whatever you like. Then with a speech bubble to the right side, pointing back at that logo, within the bubble would say "Dot Net". Conceptually it's meh. "Saidit" should be in the bubble if you like bubbles. This is where a mascot might come in handy.

The next image is a concept I had almost from day one here. The concept is great, but it's not what we're looking for, and my execution of it is weak, at best. But it's still fun and worth showing you. I could list all the things wrong with my first and only sketch in this direction but I don't want to waste anyone's time.

And lastly, my cat, Miss Ivana Barfsalot, wouldn't move. The camera flash works better from an angle but skews the page. Next time I'll just unskew it. I cropped and blurred the background with my work desk and all the crap on it. Miss Ivana Barfsalot 1 and Miss Ivana Barfsalot 2 .

I numbered my critical points in case you prefer referring to them in short form.

Feel free to give me feedback, ideas, directions, likes, dislikes, try something new, clean it up into a vector, or to forget the whole thing.

Edit: Also, I can just take the existing SaidIt log and put it in a bubble.

[–]JasonCarswell[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I won't be offended if you don't like my pitch. That's just a part of the design field. I'm also very keen to please my clients, and you - so feel free to hit me with your harshest so we can not waste time and get to where you want to be.