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We are having a lot of questions on critiques and I think we, as a community, can have fun and see how others creative nature is expressed and guide them to be better. Other Stack sites, have implemented guidelines for questions, such as Writers Stack, but I think we can take it further and enjoy discussing it in chat.

Jut post your project as an answer here, and bring it up in our chat room.

Requirements

You must have either a specific question about your sample or specific guidelines for the critique. Below would be examples of on-topic questions:

  • "How can I make my arch flow with my Typography?"
  • "How can I make my colors flow together with the current design?"
  • "How can I adjust my footer to be unique but flow together with the body?"
  • "My icon is flat but what are some elements I can do to give it depth?"
  • "How can I add balance with color in my magazine cover?"

Your post must be detailed with your desired goals and what you are achieving. We do not want questions that are broad and can go in several directions because that is not what our goal is.

What to expect?

Well.. help really. I ask and say that this is desired to be a positive experience for others and to remember we all started somewhere and we all have different talents. That said if you attend to please be constructive and try to be considerate. On that note as well, this is a public board and many people can see your work. If you ask for a critique remember that is something we hope to give so please take it positively and try not to defend. Others' have ideas, views, and execution techniques that if taken as a positive can effect your design and help you grow.

How to choose what we critique?

Post an answer below with the image, question, details of what you are trying to do and what you are trying to execute.

Posting work

Please limit to 1 post per 1 event. We do not want a single person 10 different projects because in reality some would take it as you are wanting the community to do your work and that is not the goal of this.

Post on!!

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  • It would be interesting to see why this didn't work. I think scheduled events are difficult in general (because of the time difference). I was the only one in the room, I waited and waited, and left.
    – Yisela
    Aug 26, 2013 at 3:55

2 Answers 2

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The task I'm looking for some feedback on is one of retaining brand equity after a name/company-wide change.

For those who may not know, in a nutshell, brand equity is the intangible assets of public awareness, reputation, familiarity, recognition and other important and hard to measure factors.

The company I created this for has 30 years of brand equity built up, which will unavoidably be lost after the company has changed.

I worked with the Director to develop a logo that existing customers will find familiar, whilst also taking into account the business expansion over the years to provide more extensive services.

This is the logo comparison, the left is the old one:

enter image description here

Please also consider that the old logo was very recently updated from this:

enter image description here

The colour of the new logo is very similar to the colour of the old one, despite these two examples. The font is also the same as the original.

The image for the new logo was taken from the promotional literature for further recognition from existing clients:

enter image description here

Feel free to point out flaws in the new logo, I know of a few myself, but what I'm much more interested in is whether or not I've captured as much brand equity as possible, and I wonder if you guys can think of any other ways to capture the old brands equity.

A little more background:

The old brands website was appalling, so nothing to help from there, and there is pretty much no other promotional material or previous work to draw from, other than what I've mentioned.

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    One thing to note with the previous logo is its simplicity. Belmont's a little easier to read, while still noticing the trucks and vans in the illustration at a quick glance. Your revision has a nice illustration, but there seems to be a somewhat even amount of stuff going on, or business, throughout half to two thirds of the logo, without much breathing room, or space to create that hierarchy which lets the eyes know there's stuff going on here, and some different stuff going on here. As far as brand equity, they feel like two different companies that do the same thing. Yours looks newer.
    – Eric
    Aug 26, 2013 at 14:38
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    I agree with Eric - it looks nice, but there are three elements (illustration, 'Hillson', 'Logistics') that compete for initial attention. I'd up the 'Hillson', down the 'logistics', and increase the padding and roundness around 'Hillson' - which would emphasise it more while also echoing the old branding slightly more strongly.
    – user56reinstatemonica8
    Aug 27, 2013 at 0:26
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    p.s. When I first read this, I wasn't reading very closely... I thought they were two seperate companies and that you were trying to update the Belmont logo to compete with Hillson. My thoughts were (on the new Belmont logo) - nice start, but it's not as modern-looking or strong as Hillson's and it's so similar it could almost be mistaken for the same company. Then I recognised the vans in the photo, got confused and read the question properly!
    – user56reinstatemonica8
    Aug 27, 2013 at 0:31
  • Final comment - the near-black blue is very dark, there's almost no contrast with the dark grey in the illustration. I'd suggest maybe lightening this blue (echoing the old brand a little more in the process - maybe a bit darker and a bit less saturated than the old old logo), use it also on 'logistics', and have the 'Hillson' back colour match the dark detail from the illustration, which I might in turn have match the black detail lines. This would reinforce the heirarchy, look slightly friendlier and less harsh, and also boost recognition to the old brand.
    – user56reinstatemonica8
    Aug 27, 2013 at 0:36
  • Thanks @user568458 and Eric, some good points, I'll certainly work on some of the things you guys have highlighted. Especially the padding, I too feel it is a bit cluttered and could use some more breathing space, but alas, all changes must go through my client, and sometimes it's hard to align your views with others, so it could take a little while. Thanks again :)
    – Dom
    Aug 27, 2013 at 23:26
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Well to break the ice I will post a question. Lately I have been working on a personal project, a sort-of hot rod blog. I've been battling and designing multiple ways to integrate ads in the site's footer since it is free but I am unhappy with the look. Any advise or suggestions on how to integrate the ads or could it be the pagination? Should I maybe just have ads in the post sections instead of on the home page? I typically dislike ads but they are a necessary to keep a free blog open but does anyone have any suggestions?

enter image description here

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  • Honestly, this looks more like an advertisement for Apple products than the web site. It's difficult to get a solid impression of the site since the site elements are completely unreadable.
    – Scott
    Aug 21, 2013 at 6:54
  • It is pretty hard to get a good feel for it as the examples are so small, but even from here it looks like there's no good space for it on the tablet and mobile, whilst it looks fine on the desktop. Maybe a basic HTML text link advert would be better for the smaller versions, if possible. Also, I really hope you're planning to use more than a third of the available screen space on desktops?
    – Dom
    Aug 21, 2013 at 14:18
  • 1) ads are omitted from mobile and 2) save it for Saturday ;)
    – user9447
    Aug 21, 2013 at 14:24
  • Can you add a couple of screenshots without the imac rendering? The image is a little small to focus on, and seeing more of the site could help us.
    – Eric
    Aug 21, 2013 at 14:59
  • I wonder if the photos - the 'main event' - lose something from rubbing up right against the textured background? The trouble is, giving them any kind of border might make there even more non-photo noise competing for focus. Maybe a black border styled like it dips away from the viewer - so it's background to the photo's foreground. Or, a subtle dark drop-shadow border on all sides, soft & broad to not distract but stopping texture from touching photo. I quite like the texture so it'd be a shame to lose it. If possible, even padding between photos vertically and horizontally might be sharper.
    – user56reinstatemonica8
    Aug 21, 2013 at 16:15
  • My bad, you called it 'Critique week', got confused.
    – Dom
    Aug 21, 2013 at 16:16

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