New Logo & Banner

Having had a problem with my previous logo when turning it into a banner for my website, I decided to rethink some ideas.  Since I had shot some still life for content of my online magazine, I thought that it would be nice to incorporate one of those images as a background for my logo/banner, as it would bring together the idea that it was a beauty magazine.  Below are the new designs that I created, along with feedback from my target market focus group.

1

From the original image I cut out a piece from the centre of the image to create the smudge in the design above.  I like the simplicity of this idea, however as a banner this still gives me the same problem that I had before with the menu.  If the banner did not take up so much room on the web page, I might have considered having that as a sticky scroll too.

FOCUS GROUP FEEDBACK

The feedback for this design was mixed.  A third of the group really liked the idea of combining the smudge in the banner, whereas the other two thirds thought that the smudge looked really out of place and a bit 'blobby'.  With regards to the feedback, this logo/banner will not be chosen for the magazine.

2

For this design, I have used the full product image as a background for the banner.  With this design I have also played around with the idea of having the menu and logo next to each other in the banner.  This would allow me to pin it to the top of my website page, meaning that the menu will move as the reader scrolls, which is what I originally had planned.  This is not preferable, as ideally I would be able to just have the menu bar stay at the top when it reaches it.

FOCUS GROUP FEEDBACK

The feedback for this design was a lot more positive.  Everyone in the group liked this banner, as they felt that it had a better finish and looked more professional.

3

Here, I have again use the full product image as a background for the banner.  However, this time I have experimented with having the title of the magazine on one line, as this would make it work better as a sticky header.  I do like this banner, but I think that with the name and menu all on one line, the spacing between them is not enough for it to be distinguishable and effective.

FOCUS GROUP FEEDBACK

The feedback for this design was, again, more positive.  As it is very similar to the banner above, the feedback was basically the same.  The group agreed that this design also looked professional, however they preferred the design above because of the way that the name of the website was laid out.

4

As a working logo, I decided to go with the majority vote and use number 2 as my banner, however when I showed Elizabeth she was not keen on it. She said that because the logo font was the same as the website font, it was not a distinctive logo.

Therefore I went back to my banner design, changed the font of the title and moved the menu bar to underneath the logo.  I am much happier with this design, and the feedback from my focus group matched my feelings.

FOCUS GROUP FEEDBACK

The group agreed that this was a much better layout and design for my magazine's banner. It was said that the font was a lot nicer and more distinctive and the general concessus was that this should be the banner used on my website.