Our logo...

[bacterozoid]

Nothing against our current logo (simple and effective), but maybe we would benefit from something a little more notable?

http://bit.ly/luA9Y

Just something I whipped up...if for nothing else the fun of whipping it up.

[Patrysha]

Hmm if you have spare time and a desire to do graphics for free....

[lav]

Get rid of the tie and I like it!

I kind of agree the current logo makes you not want to put it on your site, no offence to whoever designed it as I know the guys were probably pushing time restraints when they were putting the forum together and were concentrating on more important things at the time.

[Evan]

Even to use the tie to make the letters "l" in the word "small" would be interesting.

[lav]

NOOOOOO!!! no tie at all lol

[bacterozoid]

Why so much hate on the tie? :P

[lav]

Why so much hate on the tie?I think its irrelevant, and it looks as if its been added just for the sake of it, it looks like clip art, is it clip art?? Think about the women that use the site, most dont wear ties unless they are being extra seductive lol. It really doesnt give any meaning to me other than to fill in space and I would rather just "white space"

sorry!! Im harsh I know but I critique design everyday its my job :)

[cbscreative]

The current logo is deliberately simple to capture the idea of "business" using the look of old fashioned typing, complete with the imperfections created by a real typewriter on paper. Maybe you young guys can't identify with that any more since you may have never used one. You're right that the logo was put together very quickly though.

I'll wait to hear more commentary on the subject, but until then, the person who designed the logo has no further comment.

[lav]

the person who designed the logo has no further comment.LOL Dont take it to heart CBS you are right us "youngsters" just dont make a connection between the "old fashioned typewriter" and "business" thing. Maybe the older people who use the forum pick up on it straight away hehe

Just out of curiosity does Vbulletin have stats on the demographics of its members? Did you know that you may have hit a nail without even having a hammer as the highest percentage of business owners is between the age of 45 and 54 being 32% runner up is 35-44 being at 24%

Im way down the list so it doesnt matter what I think about the logo 25-34 is only 8%
that was in 2002 though Im sure it would have changed but I cant find any more recent data maybe someone has some better figures

[bacterozoid]

That is a good point about the tie and gender.

Steve, no hate to your logo, I promise. :) I'm 22 years old and it didn't stop me from joining the forum. I just like things to be smooth and have some color and style to them.

What about a small typewriter on the left typing a document that says "SBF" on it as an image, then the same font for the site name...or a large typewriter popping up from the bottom of the page with a page that has that text on it?

[cbscreative]

Although it's only been barely over a year since this forum started, many of the members here would not be as familiar with the situation we faced back then (lav and Evan in this thread would be exceptions). We broke off from the .com because new owners of that forum were letting it rot on the vine by being completely oblivious to the needs of the forum members. Prior to that, it was the best small biz forum, but it became obvious to us that we needed to take matters into our own hands. This place has become a huge success because it is run by people who care and has great members.

The main reason I bring that up is so the ones here who don't know about that little piece of history will gain some insight into this logo. Since we are the .net version of the same forum, and quite a few of us here were active members of the .com version, we needed to really emphasize the .net in our name.

Because everyone knew of the SBF and we only needed to brand the .net, a very simple method was chosen. In my research, I discovered that even though typing is the means of communication on forums, no one was using a logo even close to this. Even though very simple, it is unique, which is an important quality for a logo. I had never used a typewriter font for any design before, but felt it was perfect for a forum.

Only us "older" people may get the significance of the colors used. One of the "advancements" in typewriter technology was the dual colored ribbon allowing you to type in red for emphasis. You guys missed out on an exciting era.

Although the colors are plain, that was also deliberate.

Since you brought up the issue, it might be time to rethink the design. I still like it, as did the members who commented on it at the time, but logos are something where everyone has different opinions.

[vangogh]

I wanted to let the discussion here proceed a bit before jumping in. To reinforce what Steve said, the main idea with the logo was to make it clear we were now on .net instead of .com. We thought simpler would work best.

One of the things I would like to do in the hopefully not too distant future is redesign the entire forum. We're still using the default vBulletin theme after all. Due to other things like needing to be there for clients and a few other projects I'm working on I decided to put a new design here off until 2010. It's also not fun to work on vBulletin themes. I thought in our first year the most important thing was growing the community so that's where the focus has been.

I would like a nicer look here though, and I would like to start incorporating some of the functionality suggestions we've had over the months.

As for the tie in the logo, that's never going to happen. I think it's actual the opposite of who we are as a community. Show of hands; how many of you wear a tie to work? I know some here do. I know I don't. In fact I don't even think I own a tie at the moment.

To me the image of a tie says things like formal and corporate. I think our community is informal and hardly corporate. It's really not an image that fits with who we are. Besides I'm pretty sure that's Dilbert's tie.

The rest of the logo is fine, though I think it's still important to emphasize the .net part more to avoid confusion. For now know a new logo probably isn't going to show up very soon. I want to spend some time first thinking about a redesign of the entire site first. It might be interesting though to have a few people create logos and add them here or in another thread and then have the community vote on which they like best.

[Evan]

Maybe you young guys can't identify with that any more since you may have never used one.

Despite being 22, I've used a typewriter many times in my life...

[bacterozoid]

Edit: My web server went down (figures...it was Windows). I'm installing Ubuntu on that computer right now. In the meantime, my graphic is lost into oblivion until I can get in touch with my backup. I'll re-host it (because I know you all love the tie ;)) as soon as I'm back up and running.

Thanks for all the discussion and input, especially from those who've been around and know the details about why this forum was created.

I would love to see the forum change from the default theme, but I know it's not anybody's full-time job to do that. I'm excited for a little discussion on the matter, though.

Also, I do like the current logo (mostly). I think the biggest thing that prompted me to create one was the forum theme. With some improvement there I think the logo and forum would mesh better together.

Regardless, it's the members that make a forum and I'm content with what we have.

[vangogh]

Giving the forum a look other than the default is definitely on my list. I have to take care of the clients first since they put food on the table and help pay the mortgage. I have been looking at other forums the last few months and trying to generate some ideas.

[rezzy]

Forum templates! Now that is an undertaking. Ill chime in with the other youngsters, I have used a typewriter, but never came in contact with the red ribbon.

My parents actually had one of the first computers, which had a dot matrix printer. For those youngsters, its a printer that uses big dots to make letters. It was slow, loud and and well slow and loud.

Id like to see a new skin applied on the forums, it would step us forward just a bit.

[bacterozoid]

Back before the days of those fancy PDF forms that you fill out on the computer I, too, used a typewriter to fill out job applications and submit college applications.

Fortunately for me, I didn't have to use this kind like some of you guys:

http://www.slsa.sa.gov.au/exhibitions/boland/images/memorabilia/images/typewriter_jpg.jpg

:p

[vangogh]

I've used manual typewriters, though the first one that was truly mine was an electric. You could type a full line before having any of it print to the page. It was mine while in college and it was used for the few papers each year that needed to be typed. A step up from a manual typewriter, but nowhere close to having a computer, which I did have by the end of college.

[lav]

though the first one that was truly mine was an electricoooooohhh aaaahhhh an electric one. My mum had an electric one but my little boy hands were not allowed to touch it.......I wanted to so much though but i was a good boy and controlled my urges.

[Blessed]

I remember taking typing in school and using an electric typewriter. I even owned one for awhile - but my first computer, now that was exciting!

Oh and on the proposed logo - sorry, but I hate the tie too :)

[rezzy]

Wow typewriters. Steven, I remember my neighbor had a typewriter like device, where you could type the full paper and then it would print it out. It was a slight modification of what you mentioned.

I dont ever recall using a full manual typewriter.

[bacterozoid]

That's kind of how one was that I used. It had a cool popup screen and I typed into it. I forget how much I could type, but I always had fun typing a lot and then watching the typewriter go at it.

[cbscreative]

Oh the memories. The word processing typewriter seemed like such a big deal back then. I had one with a two line LCD display probably very similar to what bacterozoid described. I could type the whole letter before actually typing on paper (the automated typing was cool). That saved a lot of wasted paper and manual edits. It even stored several pages (I think it was 64k which is a lot when it's just text). I could buy, and did buy, a proprietary storage card to hold more info. As I recall, they were 64k and cost about $50 to $100 each.

[Business Attorney]

Well, I did use a manual typewriter all through high school, but in college I bought an electric typewriter - without any fancy memory, lcd screens or automatic typing. With my first computer (circa 1984) I skipped the dot matrix and went for a Juki daisy wheel printer for better print quality.

If you think a dot matrix was loud and slow, try a daisy wheel printer. I ended up buying a dot matrix for drafts because it was faster and quieter than the daisy wheel. It was also much cheaper to operate because daisy wheel printers used a single-use coated-plastic ribbon while dot matrix printers used an inked cloth ribbon that could be used until it was eventually too light to read

[rezzy]

Daisy wheel. Heard of them, never seen them in action. Its amazing how much technology has evolved and continues to evolve.

I remember my dad quoting that 32 mb space then anyone could ever feel. Now people are pushing towards 1 tb (terabyte) or 1016 gb.

[cbscreative]

That's actually 1024 GB in a TB, rezzy. Good thing you're not trying to win our geek award.

I had an instructor back in 2001 that talked about one of his co-workers that was around when a 1 MB computer was purchased that had to be brought in on a fork lift and had a price tag of $70,000.

[bacterozoid]

Man, that would take a mega byte out of your wallet...

[ndlandis]

Just chiming in because I can! I am 33 and used an old fashioned manual typewriter all through high school and college! OK only part of college. It was baby blue and had it's own hard case. It looked really cool but it killed my fingers! I finally had to give it up when the periods would leave little holes in my papers. We had electric ones and computers at school but I liked my retro typewriter! I'm sure no one else thought I was as cool as I thought I was!:cool:

[vangogh]

I think the only manual typewriters I used were when I took a typing class in high school. Most of my pre computer typing was on the electric typewriter.

[KristineS]

I remember using a manual typewriter when I was quite small. Can't remember who had it, but I loved pushing the keys down and making the letters appear. My pre computer typing was on an electric typewriter as well. Seems kind of crazy to think about that now, but then I actually used to go to the library and check out books to use for research papers. When I tell my niece and nephews that, they look at me like I'm a dinosaur.

[phanio]

Don't like th tie either. Always good to spruce up the brand though!

[MrGamma]

Nothing against our current logo (simple and effective), but maybe we would benefit from something a little more notable?

http://bit.ly/luA9Y

Just something I whipped up...if for nothing else the fun of whipping it up.

I think it's a great effort and could most likely be used somewhere.

However, I also like the communication of the typewriter font. It gives a little bit more credibility to the forum. Jmo...

[cbscreative]

However, I also like the communication of the typewriter font. It gives a little bit more credibility to the forum. Jmo...

Thank you. I like having you here already. And until you start an intro thread, let me just say welcome aboard.