RichKoster
ModEARator
Group: Disney EchoEar Grand Mouseter/AdministratEAR
Posts: 5119
Joined: Aug. 2001 |
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Posted: Aug. 04, 2003 2:13 am/pm |
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The graphic look of this forum matches the new heading logo I designed for Scottwdw's website. He wanted a better look and his old logo didn't really say "Disney" because there was nothing Disney about it.
He already had silverware in his logo, and I wanted to continue using that idea to convey the food part of his website's topic. I started searching for some source pictures of a knife, fork and spoon using Google, without liking what I found. I remembered the Disney Catalog had been selling Disney-themed flatware, so I searched that site and found the utensils you see here -- except their utensils don't have the giant Mickey's on the bottom of them, the originals have little Mickey icon cut-outs in the base of the handle. But they were too small to show up in the various sizes the new logo would need to be. So, I found a picture of chrome liquor bottle stoppers that had these Mickey heads on them, turned them upside-down from how they had been, and then adjusted the contrast and coloring (the silverware in the new logo has a slight bluish cast to it). The last step for the silverware was to add a slight halo around it, giving it a magical dining experience look to it. That glow, plus a drop shadow, then sizing and positioning each piece was the last step for that element.
Early in the design planning, I considered having some sort of phone or Mickey hand holding a Mickey-style phone, but that idea was soon rejected when the rest of the logo started coming together because the phone part of it was adding too much clutter and I needed to make it simpler.
The "PS CALCULATOR" part of the logo started as my own Mickey-shaped calculator, which I don't think is sold anymore. In looking around online for it this weekend, the only place I found it was on ebay going for $3. This made me feel really bad, since to me it is worth far, far more than that. But, I guess in this day of PDAs, laptops, and home computers, there isn't much of a demand for stand-alone calculators anymore, much less large ones shaped like Mickey. Sad. So, the best course of action I had was to scan my own Mickey calculator, then touch it up to remove any imperfections that have occurred over the years we've owned it. The buttons on the actual calculator are black, the same as the rest of it, plus there are many more of them, it being a full-feature calculator. I liked that the calculator is black like Mickey's body, but having both the buttons and the calculator black wouldn't show up very well -- plus the buttons would get too small when I reduced the image down for the logo. So, I ramped over all of the buttons to eliminate them and then cut out different buttons from a picture of another Mickey calculator, a simpler one with fewer buttons, and overlaid it on the image of my calculator. The buttons on that simpler calculator were blue, so I changed them to red to give more of a Mickey look to them. I considered what to put in the display window of the calculator, thinking for a bit to put "90 DAYS" or "120 DAYS" or what-have-you, then thought Disney seems to be adjusting the PS call-in dates so I better steer clear of that. Even though it is actually hard to put in letters on a calculator  I thought it would be neat to have "PS CALCULATOR" in its window, to give the impression that this cool-looking Mickey calculator is the actual PS Calculator Scottwdw designed.
After arranging the calculator and the utensils together in a way I liked, I placed them over a background that is made from a blurred parchment pattern to give the appearance of a tablecloth. Note that in the smaller versions of the logo (seen on the Priority Seating website) I opted for just a white background without any pattern in it, which worked better in those versions which are smaller than the image seen here on this page.
The next step was the text. After trying out various typefaces, I narrowed it down to two. The one I finally picked is named Tempus Sans ITC. "Tempus" means "time" -- so I felt that was perfect for the logo for the website and forum dealing with making Priority Seating and figuring out when's the best time to do that! I liked how with the text and how I colored it in sections to help break up how wordy it is by giving each similar word group a slightly-different color (but subtle, nothing that hits you over the head, though, like a box of Crayolas... the dark red "Disney Dining" to mimic the red buttons that are similar to Mickey's red shorts, the dark yellow "& Priority Seating" to have some sort of yellow to remind you of Mickey's shoes, and the "Message Forum" in a muted green which picks up the green of the calculator's display window), and how I laid out the text combined with the calculator and utensils, it gave the finished logo a clean, retro-classy look -- but still with that Disney whimsy of having Mickey elements in it.
When I was happy about the whole thing, I sent the logo in its three sizes and versions over to Scottwdw for his approval. I hate having to show things as I'm working on them, and would rather just do it my way completely at first, then make changes if that's what others think needs to be done. Well, Scottwdw thought the new logo was wonderful! He said it gives the site a better and more professional look about it. He loves the Mouse Ears Calculator idea, saying it is "just perfect. Simple, yet elegant!!"
Funny, that's exactly the look I was striving for. So I guess I succeeded. 
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 RichKoster, Disney Echo modEARator
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