Now that is one of the best briefs I have seen in a while on this forum. Very well explained. That's exactly what designers need. And that in turn also benefits the CH, who will get better designs.

Hope this contest ends well. I will enter this one.

P.S. Horses again...haha

Agree with you dextracer... Good brief from the CH.

yeah, horse related contest again...

I assume that this is a great KICK start for the new GFX.

Horses are popular At least over here in The Netherlands. Approx 500.000 horses (and horse-owners) on a population of 17M. IMO pretty impressive.

I noticed some concern about abandoned contests and not choosing a winner. This is not what we have in mind If there are entries and if those entries don't suck (which I don't expect after following some other contests here) we will definitely assign a winner.

BTW we don't have a designer for the new layout yet so if you're into that and if you create the winning design, we might have some more work for you.

These are just simple ideas with the horse outline and a possible hill idea.

Here is a concept. Let me know your thoughts.

Thank you for the submissions so far!

CnSGD:
The design could use a bit more color, but my main gripe is that it stays too close to the current design. I like the simplicity though!

SBMDESIGNS:
If the logo contains a horse it at least has to be a horse that's buckling and preferably the horse that we're currently using in the logo Jumping is a separate discipline in the equine world and it's a relatively small part on our site. Most (80%?) of our users are dressage riders.


We would really like to see really 'clean' designs. Not a lot of fuss, not a lot of small details, the typography should be very strong, I think the horse (only the hind legs could also be OK) should be a relatively small part of the design.

Here are my first twio designs:





The letter "k" in the second design represents a stylization of the movement of the horse's back legs in the current logo of the forum.




The k can also be used as a favicon for the forum, as it's distinctive enough and distinguishable at small sizes.
The orange colour is in the colour scheme to emphasize the fact that the forum is dutch, and also to complement the blue colour of the rest of the elements.

Hi -
Just read that you don't want
something too close to the orig.
but I tried to update it, so let
me know if possible or not...

Thanks,
El

BartVB;22007 wrote:

Thank you for the submissions so far!

CnSGD:
The design could use a bit more color, but my main gripe is that it stays too close to the current design. I like the simplicity though!

We would really like to see really 'clean' designs. Not a lot of fuss, not a lot of small details, the typography should be very strong, I think the horse (only the hind legs could also be OK) should be a relatively small part of the design.

Got it will post a revision soon.

Here is the revised idea. I thought I would make it almost like a header as well as a logo. So here is samples of all versions...Also one with a different font

my entry

Here are some revised versions. Colors can always be changed. Let me know your thoughts.

Thanks again for all the submissions to date

Dextracer: We really like the feel of your design! It's clean and simple, recognizable and strong. However, it lacks a certain 'cozyness' that we need for our community-site. The 'sylization of the movement' is too subtle and abstract for most users, we fear. Would you be able to incorporate the horse figure into the logo somehow? Perhaps in the space that now holds the 'www' or the letter 'o'? The letters 'www' can be left out of the design.

LJK: Impressive quality! We do prefer a smaller amount of detail, and the horse can be a smaller part of the design. The design as a whole may be a little cleaner, more 'business' style. More detail is also possible (i.e. use the photo or something very close to it) as long as there is a simplified version for merchandise/small versions/BW print.

CNSGD: Actually, we prefer your first design, this one lacks the simplicity that your first one did have. Your proposal contains a bit too much detail it's a bit too 'busy'.

HighEndProfile: Nice start We like the way you incorporated the horse figure and the text in #1, made them connect somehow! Could you play around with that a little more? See what happens if you're using the whole horse, an accent in a contrasting color, a different (maybe a bit more professional?) type face, etc.

SBM: Lot's of choice there, thanks! 4 and 7 are not what we're looking for due to the height of the design, we do not have much 'vertical' space for the logo. The idea of the horse kicking away part of the logo works for us, makes a welcome connection between horse and text. However: we'd like the connection to be more visible in 'style' also. The font you chose is a little dull, it may be a little more explicit / distinct.


BTW can someone tell me how to reach an administrator? I used the link in the header ('contact the administrator for details') but no-one seems to be home

some variations

here's mine

a couple of options...

Here are some revisions, some different fonts, etc. Any elements of one can be swapped with another and any of the gradient colors can be turned to flat for embroidery reasons. Let me know your thoughts.

Hi -
Here's a new idea based on your feedback.
Let me know if closer or farther-off...
Thanks,
El
[Dang, DaNuTz-Yo that's pretty darn lazy of you!]

Horse and Text in action...height is 120px...even smaller looks good too with 90px height..

Revised idea

Here are the revisions.



Variations.

Thanks again for the entries and revisions and our apologies for the fairly late response.

HighEndProfile: Thanks for the variations, really nice design! We can think of no revisions for now. We do prefer the 4th design. If you have any other ideas in the same style they're welcome however

Misterman: We really like your idea! However, the body of the horse becomes a little too long, and we think that the position of the hind legs of the horse are a little too low - it's no longer visible that the horse is bucking. We were thinking something more like this: http://www.bokt.nl/upload/11097/minderlanghors3.jpg
(BTW: I don't know if it's allowed to adapt an entry to make something clear. If it's bad practice, I'll delete the file) Perhaps you can change the grey colour to a lighter shade of blue or orange?

Finlessfish: Thanks for your entry, but we feel the design lacks unity. We prefer the horse figure more integrated into the design.

SBMDESIGNS: That's a lot to choose from, thanks! However, at this moment we feel that there are other designs which fit in better with the style we are looking for: stronger, a bit more 'business'like. Also, we prefer a sans-serif font.

LJK: Definitely closer! We like the second one best, without the '3D effect' in the text. However, could you play around with the colours so the horse stands out? Maybe the text in lightblue, horse and '.nl' in different shades of orange?

Creative27: The design is a bit too 'bland', the italics to illustrate the horse bucking against the letters is nice but we need a design that's a bit stronger, a bit more businesslike.

CnSGD: We feel that the design is not clean enough: The font you choose, added to the diagonal text and the 'round/outlined' horse figure gives it too much detail.

Dextracer: Thanks for your revisions, we really like your style The first two designs don't work for us, in the first design it looks like a horse figure with a white background has just been copy/pasted without making it transparent The oval form in the second design doesn't really work with the chosen font. Would it be possible to try to make the 'O' a bit smaller? It does seem to be a bit too big now although it does nicely match the angle of the K at the moment. Also could you try your very first design with a small version of the horse above the letters, i.e. above the O?

here's the requested change. I put the altered the placement of the .nl so that it was more connected to the bokt