The Journal Of An Internetaholic

The Evolution Of A Logo

daz71 — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 17:52:57 +0000

When Lance and I started the Dumbed Down Life podcast we knew from the beginning that we’d need a web site to go with it.

Lance modified one of the standard templates supplied by Blogger, the service which we’d chosen to host the site, giving us the orange colour and space for a logo.

We talked about a logo and Lance came up with the idea of a graphic to represent each of the words in the title. For “Dumbed” we had a dunce cap, “Down” an arrow pointing down and “Life” a heart.

Initial concepts for the logo made the hat and arrow more pictorial.

Although we didn’t have big plans for the podcast and associated web site we still wanted an identity that would look good printed on business cards, letter heads and t-shirts. We simplified the dunce cap to the triangle at the top of the logo, the arrow to the triangle at the bottom and proportioned the heart shape to fit into the triangle shape of the logo.

From the first cleaned up attempt at the stylised logo we cleaned it up, making sure the “D” triangles were equilateral. Now we had the template for our logo.

While simple and clean would be great for print and scaling it was clear that for use with the Internet, where we had more colours to play with, some subtle art package tweeks were needed.

Playing with layers, putting a coloured logo over a black one gives a very simple drop shadow. We interchange the white and Orange colours, sometimes having the orange logo, sometimes having the orange background.

As the logo is so simple we have sometimes used it as a stencil with other images to create album art for our podcast that is relevant to the recording.

When the merged image is simple it works pretty well. However, mixing pictures in the logo with a complicated background was a little over ambitious.

The simple design scales will for displaying on the web page even when rendered on a portable device.

We printed off some DDL t-shirts after first testing the design on a model in Second Life.

The DDL racing car was a plain white car with some paint package trickery to place the logos.

In the 80′s a brand of compilation albums titled “Now That’s What I Call Music” was launched. The logo for the brand went through a few incarnations. As with the DDL logo it started off two dimensional. When they reached “Now That’s What I Call Music 20″ they settled with a three dimensional logo which, with little variation, has continued in use up to the present day. Even when the series reset the counter for the US market they’ve kept the same, brand logo of the 3d model. It was this logo which I’d seen emblazoned on albums, cassettes and CD’s that inspired me to wanting a similar 3d rendering for the DDL logo.

As part of a test for the 3d software I created a basic copy of the NOW logo.

Lance used a graphic program called Moray that creates files to then be rendered in a specialist program called POV. The program uses simple shapes combined to make complex ones.

The “D” was simple to create and we created that as a test not long after we’d created the original 2D logo. The heart for the “L” was more complex. This render of the logo in glass shows how the heart shape is made up of intersecting cylinders and cubes.

We’ve not found yet if it is possible in Moray to render the transparent materials without showing the complicated parts of the workings inside the “L”.

With this model we are now able to change the texture, lighting, scale and positioning. We can combine the logo with other 3d models.

Something to note about our 3d model is that it can’t actually be made, well not made and stood up, at least not without “cheating”. The center of the “D” floats in mid air.

We’ll be adding a gallery page to the DDL web site, look out for different album art, desktop wallpapers and various other DDL images in the future.

Tagged: 3d modeling, cgi, computer graphics, ddl, dumbed down life, moray, podcast, povray, rendering

I’m About To Give Up On Utterli

daz71 — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 14:43:42 +0000

I like Utterli, I like the cross post function, I like the desktop gadget but it’s just not reliable enough. Several times I’ve made posts which either show up on the cross posted systems hours later or not at all.
Do you maintain blogs across multiple systems? Do you have a system for post once appear all over the place? If so, what are you using?
Thanks.

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Crazy?

daz71 — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 14:43:30 +0000

Those of you with your music catalogued and searchable, be it iTunes or what ever program you have, how many tracks show up when you search for the word "Crazy"? I get 29 tracks, 1.8 hours.
Some tracks of note are: Guns N’ Roses – You’re Crazy, Ozzy Osbourne – Crazy Train, Prince – Let’s Go Crazy, and of course Crazy Frog – Axel F.

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Coming To A Head

daz71 — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 13:14:29 +0000

The headache predicted earlier in the week did happen but it wasn’t a big deal. This was mainly a headache rather than a migraine. There were some mild migraine symptoms but nothing that couldn’t be ignored.

The weather didn’t turn stormy as had been predicted this I think was a big factor.

I had a glass or three of “Jack Morrisons”, it’s like “Jack Daniels” but it’s cheaper, on Friday night which has been known to give a me a headache but I didn’t have the headache in the morning.

Looking back I now realize that, while I had plenty to eat yesterday I had very little to drink. This is something I do too often, I’ll be getting another drink right after typing this up.

Mars “Dark and Light” are back in the shops and I had three of them over the eight hour shift. Too much chocolate has been known to give me a headache.

As I posted on Facebook yesterday, I had a tooth fall apart. While the damaged tooth is one that has had root canal work and hence has no feeling to it the surrounding teeth and gums all moved a bit and twinged.

I joked about having a botfly lave in my back but I do have a nasty big spot on my neck, right on the spine, don’t know if this could cause a headache but it’s certainly uncomfortable. I may have to put a plaster on it, like Marcelas Wallis from Pulp Fiction to stop me squeezing and picking at it.

Given so many possible causes for a headache I feel lucky that I got off so lite.

Rolling, Rolling, Rolling

daz71 — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 13:04:24 +0000

I’m talking with Lance about starting up a role playing game. Of course we’re going to try and keep the whole process paper free but for nostalgic reasons may stick to the little bag of real dice… or will we?

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Painting, A Pain In The Neck?

daz71 — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 11:08:00 +0000

One of the benefits of being over six foot tall is that I can easily reach the ceiling to paint it without the need to trundle the ladder around the room.
I’ve been in this house six years, pretty much to the week and it’s only now that I’m moving out that I’ve finally put roller to paper.
The hat was to stop me from getting paint in my hair.
It didn’t take too long for me to realize that I needed goggles over my glasses too.
One thing that helps me get on with stuff is music, loud music. Thanks to Lady Gaga, Robbie Williams and Kylie the ceiling was painted in next to no time.

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Ouch, Ouch Burning Fingers!

daz71 — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 19:34:13 +0000

Twice this week I’ve burned my fingers getting something to eat. The first time, shepards pie, under grill, Pirex dish and I foolishly picked it up without oven gloves or a cloth.
Friday I was taking a plate out of the microwave and burned my fingers again! Now I’m sure that I’ve taken plates out of the microwave before without the need of protection? Sure enough after posting a Tweet about it I went out to the microwave tonight and took out the curry without gloves and without the plate being hot.
I now realise that I normally use the same, trusty plate that I’ve had for years. It’s when I use different plates in the microwave that they seem to trap heat?
Looking at the plate that burned me on Friday I see that the surface is laced with tiny cracks. I’m guessing that these cracks are holding moisture that that gets cooked in the mircowave? My trusty plate is still crack free.
Regardless of which plate I use I really should get into the habbit of using a cloth to pick plates out of the oven and microwave.

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Giving It All Away

daz71 — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 15:04:59 +0000

The Freecycle experience has been very interesting so far.
First I gave some woodwork tools to a woman who’s husband was making beehives from old floor boards.
Next I gave a stack of Sabrina the Teenage Witch books to a very excited little girl.
I answered a "wanted" post, giving a car battery charger to someone that couldn’t get their car to start. The same guy then came to pick up some cookery books.
A suited gentleman came to collect a pair of motorcycle gloves and trousers. He told me his whole motorcycle history on my doorstep.
An overbed unit, which I always liked but makes the main bedroom look very small, was collected.
Yesterday a man with his young family turned up for the vinyl records. He was very happy with the stuff that I had from the 60′s-80′s and 90′s. When it came time to leave, his car wouldn’t start. With no money to get it fixed he said that this was normal, sometimes it just takes a while. Half an hour later the car started. It being an automatic I couldn’t even offer to give it a bump start. I later got an email from his wife saying how happy he was playing the albums.
Today a man came on his bike and took some of Barbara’s old clothes, some books and a suit of mine that I bought but never wore.
Added to this I’ve found various computer related books that I’ve been able to give to a good home.
It is hard to part with some stuff but with each happy visitor it’s getting easier and easier.

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Up Before Mid Day On A Sunday

daz71 — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 08:12:54 +0000

It’s unusual for me to be up on a Sunday Morning. Must make this count. I have so much to do, today’s the day things get started…

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Time Flies When You’re Having Fun

daz71 — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 11:14:37 +0000

Yeah, I’m actually having fun writing a document for work, what’s wrong with me? Perhaps it’s the "light at the end of the tunnel" syndrome? Time for food!!!

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I Still Have A Face!!!

daz71 — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 09:00:46 +0000

I was concerned last night that I would wake up with half my face hanging off, thankfully this hasn’t happened. The patch of skin that was red and sore yesterday has now cleared up. It must have been and allergic recation to something.

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I’m A Zombie!

daz71 — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 11:24:33 +0000

I had a weeping red patch of skin form over my ear. I thought that this was possibly caused by my glasses. I cleaned the arms of th my glasses with some hydrogen peroxide and after a few days the problem went away.
I woke up the morning with my right eye stuck shut and what felt like tears on my cheek.
As I got into the bathroom and cleaned my eye I could see that the upper part of my cheek was red as my ear had been a week ago and the skin itself is weeping.
I’m trying some Hydrocortisone cream to stop the skin being so dry and tight.

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Ketchup!

daz71 — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 10:11:26 +0000

I typically only listen to podcasts when on the train. I find it difficult to listen to people talking while I work. Since I’m mainly working from home now I don’t use the train much and consequently have several hours to catch up with. I’ll soon be without a computer and will have to use the features on my iPod Touch to keep me up to date with my downloads. Going out to the US I’ll have some time without broadband, during this time I’ll be making the most of free broadband offered by various places around town. I can’t imagine trying to download podcasts via dial up.

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I’m so proud.

daz71 — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 10:04:00 +0000

My wonderful daughter has got herself a job. Welcome to the big world my princess.

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Bombing in Majorca

daz71 — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 16:08:13 +0000

I believe the bomb that has gone off in Majorca is not far from where my family and I went a few years ago.

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Drink Our Own Champagne…

daz71 — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 13:59:08 +0000

well I would, if the waiter would bring it to us.

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The End Of The World

daz71 — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 12:06:53 +0000

Last night a mother and son came into the store and bought £17 worth of sweets. "That should see us through if the end of the world comes tonight." said the mum.
"I’ll just close the shutters on the front of the shop and I’ll be OK for a few weeks." I replied.
"Those shutters won’t protect you from the nuclear blast" said the boy.
"Ah but you’d be safe from the zombies afterwards." added the mum.

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Well That’s That Then

daz71 — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 16:23:16 +0000

The Battlebox is now officially dead, it’s snuffed it, popped it’s clogs, it’s soul, if you believe computers have souls, has left this mortal coil. Now since I have to give this laptop back pretty soon, I may not be on line for a while.

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Making Good Use Of Time

daz71 — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 12:56:58 +0000

Setting up Skype to dial in to work conference so I can listen without the phone to my ear, leaving both hands free to eat with

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The Difficult Steps

daz71 — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 12:37:04 +0000

Going to have to do some things that I really, really don’t want to do but really can’t put off any longer.

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