There is a contest for the design of the lay-out. Now for the logo. Post your entries here.

the text on the logo will probably be:

OpenDesigns.org
"The Open Design Community"

I'll give it a shot today or tomorrow

OpenDesigns.org: Join us or die!

Wait, maybe that sounds a tad too harsh.

OpenDesigns.org
where our door is always open


don't OD on the cookies.

I'm bored too.

Philosophy of the logo:
- The logo picture graphically symbolizes the two letters "O" and "D".
- "O" is blue in the logo text and picture. The blue circle represents the globe --> an open and global community.
- "D" is green in the logo text and picture. The green semi-circle represents spring colors --> a living/dynamic community.

See further down in this post for logo pictures!!

WOW! I love the concept and colors though the layout would need to be changes to have the logo and text on the same line.

@LobsterMan -- For logos generally two basic approaches exist. 1) Have text under logo, 2) have text next to logo. The size of the logo picture decides where the text goes. That is a basic graphical rule.

If we want the text on the side, then the logo symbol must decrease, so that the symbol has the same height as the text. In the text line we could then include a second line under "OpenDesigns" with a slogan. That would be the advantage of this approach.

If we want the text below, then the logo symbol must be so large, that it's width covers the width of the text.

If we follow graphics laws, these are our two choices.

I will make a second option with a text to the right. will be back in 30 minutes.

See next posting!

that's fantastic gwolfgang! Simple and elegant. Nice work.

ooooohh....shiny! I like it....i like both

Very cool G and E

Very nice Gerhard. As always, you do some amazing work.

elemental, yours is also very nice.

Elemental: could you do a full set, like gwolfgang did? If you could, either post it here (preferably), or email it to me : champ_5_(at)msn(dot)com .

Would be a great tutorial (for the tutorial section?) , logos or web 2.0 logos tutorial, just a thought...

Posted By: gnomeYeah. I don't know how to do that properly in GIMP. I could probably figure it out, but that would take some time.

Here yeah go...

How to make web 2.0 Logo In Gimp w/video

Gnome get on skype.

very nice.

Looken good.

elemental, do you use skype?

No, sorry, I don't.

Jason 'Gnome": Showed me some of his work with the glossy image, it looks good.

Was out of office since yesterday, but now back again. Lots of great things seem to have happened since then.

@Elemental -- Very nice design, looks a lot better than my "flat" Web1.0 version. We should definitely try to go for a Web2.0 version, as you have suggested and shown. A few observations: The bottom colors of the logo show a different kind of blue base color than the rest of the logo, and does not quite match the other blue in the upper half. I think the blue shades of the upper half look better than the ones in the lower half. They have a clearer crystal and glow feeling. Maybe there is a way to modify that. One way to do it would be to let the glossy look at the upper half of the logo simply cover the entire logo, and then let the blue colors come a bit closer to the edge than currently in the upper part of the logo. That would maybe give somewhat more unity to the logo as a whole and match the gradients in the logo text closer. Those are just my amateur observations (am no professional graphics guy).

These ideas are great, and I am pleased to see them!

The comments from the friend of Andreas are also insightful. My own take is that Gwolfgang's idea is the best (simple, reproducible and scaleable), elementals' rocks bells also, but may not be so reproducible on other mediums, I realise the web is primarily the delivery method.

Both designs are cool and very extensible, each element (or the O or D) could change colour easily for different projects e.t.s, good stuff.

As others say, and another point of discussion perhaps, which comes first, the site or the logo? I know it is a kind of 'chicken and egg' situation, but one that could have implications.

@Elemental -- Would it be possible to try the logo text with a different font style. Which font style did you use? The font style used in my original draft was "Futura Md BT". When I observe logos generally (especially from the big companies), it appears to me that they prefer to use very clean cut font styles which have straight or simple curved lines, but not with any decorated types of curves, see for example Adobe. I think the clearer and more clean-cut the font, the more elegant it becomes, since the elegance comes through the simplicity. In your suggestion the letter "g" in Design sort of breaks with the rest of the layout, since it introduces a complexity otherwise not present in the logo or its text. Give it a try with some other font styles, and see what you can come up with, and give us some links in the forum.