Arm Logo on TopMudSites

[Angela Christine]

So I was voting, because I'm a good girl, and I got looking at the logo there on topmudsites.  You know, the little picture-in-a-box next to our name.  Anyway, it occured to me that what is wrong with the picture isn't the logo itself, it is a tiny box and at that size a complicated logo wouldn't look good.  No, what is wrong is the white box.  Some of the other MUD logos are not boxes, or perhaps they are boxes but the "background" is set to transparant, I don't know that much about graphics.  

Do you think it would look better without the box?
Is it possible to remove the box around the logo without a pricy graphic designer?


Hmm, maybe I should have posted this to Ask the Staff.   Oh well, too late now.

[Larrath]

I actually kinda like the box.  I'd rather have that over the black background.

[Angela Christine]

Not a black background, no background at all.

See, go look at http://www.topmudsites.com/cgi-bin/topmuds/rankem.cgi?id=sanvean and click through to the list.


Armageddon, Aardwolf, Age of Chaos and Shadows of Isildur have square logos.

While Achaea, Threshold, Imperium, Nodeka, Aetolia have non-square logos.  Their logos would fit in the same sized square as the square logos, but they are not square,  or else the rest of the square is transparent.  Personally I think the non-square logos look better.



AC

[Mr.Camel]

I don't really think the Arm logo would look good on that blue background, but maybe thats just me. :?

I think its good as is.

[jhunter]

I think it'd look better minus the white box. Just  the logo over the background.

[Bakha]

Here's what it would look like with the blue background:



Of course, it looks kind of weird with the blue background surrounded by the zalanthas.org color scheme. Anyway, I was bored and had some time to play with photoshop, so there ya go.;)

[Agent_137]

I think it's fine as is. All the other little images are just uncool.

[John]

I see nothing wrong with that

[Angela Christine]

OK, fine, so people like the little box.    Did I at least trick a few people into voting so they could see the tiny pictures?


AC

[Spoon]

You could have an animated one. Then everyone would be like " Grrrr, those bloody Armers are eating all my memory!"

That'll teach 'em.

[Northlander]

Certainly fooled me into voting.

The problem is how our dear Arm symbol isn't very economical. With a big blob and three long tentacles, it doesn't make very good use of the 32x32 pixel limit - and so the white square helps it get noticed. Moreover, transparent .gifs can't handle softened edges, and our logo has a lot of edges.
I had some files left over from the banner work, so here's a .gif with a transparent background of the logo as it was reworked, and then another image of how it'd look on the background of TMS.




To make it look better, one could have it as a transparent .png. All the others on TMS are .gif though, and I suppose it might not yet be entirely compatible with everyone's rig. Having a not white but TMS-coloured box around the logo is another solution. Some computers/browsers might not show the two as the exact same colour though, causing a darkened or lightened square to show around the logo, and the image wouldn't be usable on any other site than TMS, whereas the above would work on any light-coloured backdrop. On most computers, this'd look as such:

And the file for that's at http://img131.exs.cx/img131/3479/squarelogo.gif

[Webby Kank]

I think the white is better, from a design standpoint.

However, this page...

http://www.armageddon.org/intro/adpage.html

Which is what ppl from TMS go to when clicking to learn more about Arm, could be improved.

To the unitiated, it looks like a big blob of text with links. Nobody is going to read through that. I'm freakin addicted like a crack whore to Arm, and I couldn't even read it.

I suggest you spread the information out much more, bump up the font sizes on key things of interest. That is the page that is selling the Mud to people. Make it fucking rock the party, and more players will show up. Guar-on-teed.

[Spoon]

Yeah, but if that page was visually spectacular people might enter the game, find out there is no colour and pictures, and leave.

However, after thinking abouth this for a couple of seconds, it probably wouldn't happen.

[Northlander]

I'd certainly recommend anybody interested in having a go at it to e-mail the MUD account about being allowed into our much underused Publicity forum which enjoys the focus of both immortals and a highly dedicated group of players.

[Angela Christine]

Certainly fooled me into voting.  

Woo hoo!


Nice pics.  Sure the logo is tiny, but it is way cooler than all those other logos.

Maybe what bothers me isn't so much the white background, but the black boarder around the white box.  It makes it sort of look like a school project where you cut a picture out of a magazine and paste it onto a poster.

Hmm, what about putting the logo in a circle, rather than a square?  I briefly took a marketing course, and I seem to remember that circles are the most attractive shape.  Perhaps the bloody disk of Suk-Krath behind . . . whatever the logo is.


AC

[jhunter]

I think that some of our pages and such should be updated to have a bit more of the look of our ad that shows up on TMS. I think it's a much better look and far more attractive and attention-grabbing.

Honestly, I like the way our site is...but then again...I -already- play the game. I can see how some improvements on the look of our stuff to those who -haven't- would help grab some more players to at least try it out.