Southwest Logo Thread

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I don't think any state should have its border as a background of our icon. I also don't think each state should have its own section, the logo should be a unifying thing that incorporates aspects of each into it but not divided into regions. I did try to incorporate aspects from the flags of each state into the logo.
Obviously not one state should be the background for a mulititude of states.. but here's the other thing, where I live, it looks nothing like what's being depicted on the logo. And we are a very large chunk of states (as are a lot of the other regiments), so a potential for customization of the overall theme of the group logo, I thought, would have made it more likely our diverse group of members would be willing to put a reference to the Southwest Regiment on their armor.

That's my two cents, at least. But again, like Wanderer said, we need a variety of input in to this and not to settle on a single design before getting a lot of different ideas out to the table.
 
Okay, so unfortunately my laptop is dieing, because I forgot my charger, but I wanted to share the logo I came up with in like 2 minutes.
View attachment 9245

Just something very brief to get a general idea out there.
 
Okay, so unfortunately my laptop is dieing, because I forgot my charger, but I wanted to share the logo I came up with in like 2 minutes.
View attachment 9245

Just something very brief to get a general idea out there.
Sorry man, something is wrong with your link. Can't open it in ap or browser.
I agree that the main logo shouldn't be state or region specific, but members could put the agreed region logo on a state background if they wanted.
I don't think we can reflect every geographic region in the regiment. The current approach attempts to combine the flags and stereotypical images of the region. I think that's the best approach.
 
:/ Same, Wanderer, your link is broken..

Threw these together before work to show what I meant (sorry to just steal what you have going, but this will show it easier):
Texas Preview
Oklahoma Preview
New Mexico Preview

So there would be like, a unifying image that they all contain, yes, but I really would love the idea of having the state in the background as well. I know Texas' outline is really fun (and even Oklahoma is at least a toothbrush ;0), so I can understand the more square-ish states maybe not as excited about it, but I think it would really help with the want to customize, yet still belong to the overall regiment.
 
Okay, so it isn't super clean, I need to go back and erase some barely visible lines, but I wouldn't call this a finalized design anyways, it does need some refinement, especially at the top of the wings and the tail.

I do love the colors Termhn used, so I've used them as well. I think the colors belong to both the New Mexico and Arizona flags... at least they are similar between the two. Honestly, it might could use just a splash of Oklahoma blue somewhere to make it pop, but it could turn out not as good at the same time, just something that could be played around with.

Anyways, what inspired me, was the patch that the National Guard's Southwest Regiment uses, the Native American Thunderbird, and I've been playing in my head with some bird designs, though the 405th logo turned out to actually include something that could be used for the wings, which I thoughts was kinda cool. I went ahead and also tried to turn the tail into a lightning bolt to further emphasize the southwest aspect of the design.

It's not perfect, needs some work, but it's a start:
WTJ Southwest v1.png
It might also look better if the feathers were flipped upside down so that they down from large to small rather than small to large.

And here is an example of what it could look like on the forums:
regiment-southwest 2.png
I ended up adding an extra row to the wings so it would be more square next to the "Southwest" text.

I'm working in GIMP, and you guys can hit me up on FB if you want the GIMP file that includes all the layers if you want to play around with this design.

Any thoughts/opinions?
 
I like the idea a lot; at this point it is much too busy but like you said it's not meant to be a final thing so that's fine. I'll play around with this idea and see what I come up with.
 
I vote we focus on getting a few good Regiment logos and narrowing those down before we start branching off to state logos.
 
Indeed, I was going to bring that up too. At this point we want a Regiment logo that will unite the entire regiment... at some point in the future there will theoretically be smaller divisions than regiments that may be able to have their own tagging but that isn't the point yet.
 
I'm just trying to find a way to get excited about this. I'll stop mentioning states.

I doodled some things with the Thunderbird, I'm really enjoying where that's going. I do agree the feathers should be flipped, it just has a more natural flow. If you can't read my doodle-writing, my notes of worth include: referencing the rising sun in the middle, radiating from the hexagons, which can also have the beams reflected in the pattern of the feathers/laurels. I added feet because there's a fun potential for them holding the Southwest banner, etc. Dunno.
 
Drakku, I like the sketch you have.
In terms of the rising sun look, or rather, sort of a sunburst like affect, I do like what Termhn did in his first picture in this thread. The background is not of a solid color, like I have in my picture, and we could totally do something like in the first picture if we want a subtle affect. We could also take a non-subtle approach and put the red sun behind the bird, but then I think we have to worry about the image being too busy.

As for the feet, I like how you have drawn them, they look really good, but I haven't really seen any thunderbird images that have feet, it seems like that is more of an eagle kind of thing. That's just my opinion though, as is the rest of what I'm saying here.

I also agree that the hexagons should be larger in the middle.
In your sketch I've noticed a subtle circle around them for which you use to be a cutoff for the other shapes (the tail and the legs) in the middle, which I think might be a good idea.
When I was looking at the tail last night, I was thinking of actually bringing it up in between the two lower hexagons where it would look like they would lock together, kind've like how you have the head in your sketch coming down with 4 points, where 2 of them lock/sit on the top of the upper hexagon.

I was really liking having 3 rows of feathers on either side, but perhaps that was what made Termhn say it looked too busy. Having only 1 row doesn't seem to be enough, but if we do have a strong looking sun in the middle rather than just a background effect, perhaps the rays of the sun going outward can fill in and substitute for having extra rows of feathers.

Last comment: however we end up doing the body parts of the thunderbird, I suggest we do our best to ensure that they do still have a Native American style to them, otherwise it might not look as southwestern-y as we would want.


Idk about you guys, but part of me feels like it would be easier to model this up in SolidWorks and then bring it over to an image editor for the colors.
Getting those straight lines and sharp corners just playing around with a brush in GIMP can be a pain! Haha!

EDIT:
Here's one with a gradient background (radial effect from center), flipped laurels, larger hexagons, and otherwise cleaned up compared to the last picture:
WTJ Southwest v2.png WTJ Southwest v2-Texas.png
I think the lightning tail needs to be redone so that it is straighter/more vertical, but nothing as simple as just rotating it.
Not sure how I feel about the laurels in this orientation. I like that they go from large to small, but I wish they kept the same cuts/grooves they had when they were going the other way.
One nice thing though, is we could possibly use the "wings" from the 405th Logo that come out at the top of the logo, for the tops of the wings for this logo.
Anyways, just wanted to post an alternate picture to what I have above to just compare the two.
 
I think it is best to leave out gradients because it will generally cost a significant amount more to print and it is almost impossible to replicate with templates. That said, I like where it's going.\

Solidworks definitely isn't the program you want for this but neither is gimp. You want a vector program. I use Sketch but that's Mac only. Check out Inkscape if you're on Windows, it's like the GIMP of the vector drawing world but I actually think it stacks up better than gimp does against the closed source competition. Of course Adobe Illustrator is another option but it's a lot to learn and IDK if you have it.
 
I definitely like feathers down. Two rows looks a lot better than the three row one, still suggests feathers but isn't as cluttered-ish as having three rows of them.
Gotta agree with the gradient, as Termhn said. Looks nice, but very hard to replicate outside of a computer with constant results. :]

I have work off tomorrow, so I'll sit down in the morning and clean up my sketches into actual vector art and see if I can't play around with the radiant sun, etc..
 
Drakku, I like the sketch you have.
In terms of the rising sun look, or rather, sort of a sunburst like affect, I do like what Termhn did in his first picture in this thread. The background is not of a solid color, like I have in my picture, and we could totally do something like in the first picture if we want a subtle affect. We could also take a non-subtle approach and put the red sun behind the bird, but then I think we have to worry about the image being too busy.

As for the feet, I like how you have drawn them, they look really good, but I haven't really seen any thunderbird images that have feet, it seems like that is more of an eagle kind of thing. That's just my opinion though, as is the rest of what I'm saying here.

I also agree that the hexagons should be larger in the middle.
In your sketch I've noticed a subtle circle around them for which you use to be a cutoff for the other shapes (the tail and the legs) in the middle, which I think might be a good idea.
When I was looking at the tail last night, I was thinking of actually bringing it up in between the two lower hexagons where it would look like they would lock together, kind've like how you have the head in your sketch coming down with 4 points, where 2 of them lock/sit on the top of the upper hexagon.

I was really liking having 3 rows of feathers on either side, but perhaps that was what made Termhn say it looked too busy. Having only 1 row doesn't seem to be enough, but if we do have a strong looking sun in the middle rather than just a background effect, perhaps the rays of the sun going outward can fill in and substitute for having extra rows of feathers.

Last comment: however we end up doing the body parts of the thunderbird, I suggest we do our best to ensure that they do still have a Native American style to them, otherwise it might not look as southwestern-y as we would want.


Idk about you guys, but part of me feels like it would be easier to model this up in SolidWorks and then bring it over to an image editor for the colors.
Getting those straight lines and sharp corners just playing around with a brush in GIMP can be a pain! Haha!

EDIT:
Here's one with a gradient background (radial effect from center), flipped laurels, larger hexagons, and otherwise cleaned up compared to the last picture:
View attachment 9318 View attachment 9319
I think the lightning tail needs to be redone so that it is straighter/more vertical, but nothing as simple as just rotating it.
Not sure how I feel about the laurels in this orientation. I like that they go from large to small, but I wish they kept the same cuts/grooves they had when they were going the other way.
One nice thing though, is we could possibly use the "wings" from the 405th Logo that come out at the top of the logo, for the tops of the wings for this logo.
Anyways, just wanted to post an alternate picture to what I have above to just compare the two.

How would you feel about using something like this for the Texas Logo? And Termhn's is very Arizona-ish. I think as a group we should try to put something together that represents all the states in the southwest region. Here's a little inspiration:

az%20flag.jpg
NM%20state.jpg
OK%20flag.jpg
TX%20falg.jpg
 

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I think the first logo has promise. The rays are AZ, the colors are NM, we could make a field of blue for OK, and we could add a star on each side for TX. Check it out:
uploadfromtaptalk1426966519025.jpg
 
I like that! Just one edit, can we get the outline more like the original, so its not just a rectangle?
 
Zero 071:
Yeah, in regards to the state flags, I think all of us at one point has looked towards them for some sort of inspiration.
Pretty sure I still have all of them saved to my computer.
I tried to go further by researching to possibly see if there were any logos the military used for infantry divisions (or whatever) in the Southwest.

That said, I think we should decide which shades to do for the colors:
• Yellow - New Mexico (Yellowy Yellow) or Arizona (Slightly Orange-y Yellow)
• Red - New Mexico (Crimson), Texas (America Red), or Arizona (Maroon?); Oklahoma also has 2 different shades of red on its flag for consideration
• Blue - Oklahoma (Light Blue), Texas (America Blue), or Arizona (Deep Blue)
• White - Texas (America White), Oklahoma (Beige/Cream)
• Orange (Optional) - Arizona
(fyi, I just kinda made up names for the colors, feel free to correct me)

We've been keeping a theme to the colors we've used in our designs, but we haven't necessarily sat down and formally decided on anything, which is probably something we need to do.

As for the font we should use, I think I remember the PDF of the 405th vector art mentioning that it used Baksheesh, so I think we should stick with it.

I'm also not 100% sure how to respond to what you've said in regards to the Texas Logo or in regards to Termhn's Logo design.
In regards to the logo where I have "Texas" written across the bottom, I simply just added the lettering to see how it would look.
I was thinking that basically, with the logo like that, we could add what our Fireteams/Battalions were at the bottom (Texas, for example) , with "The 405th Southwest Division" shown at the top.
Now, in regards to the Rising Sun logo being "very Arizona-ish", is that a bad thing? I'm not sure exactly what you mean.



MyrHerder:
It's not a bad design, though, the blue for Oklahoma is off in color (in regards to the blue on Oklahoma's flag)
Looking at the design, it might be possible for us to change the laurels around the logo to be Oklahoma's flag's feathers. I vote we test it and see how it looks, then see what Art Andrews thinks.



At the end of the day, there are some things I think we need to consider in regards to the Southwest Logo, and if I leave anything out, let me know, and I'd be glad to list it.

Things we should consider for our Logo:
1) Does the symbol/design identify with the Southwest?
2) Places it will be seen:
• How it will look on Flags/Banners at Conventions
• How it will look on Contact/Info Cards we could hand out to people at conventions so they can look up the 405th online
• How it will look on Brochures (if we make any)
• How it will look on the forums next to our Southwest label
• How it will look on T-Shirts
• How it will look on our armor if we put our Regional Logo on our armor rather than the general 405th Logo (i.e. Stickers & Decals).
3) Should we consider having one design for large things (like banners) and a smaller design for things like business cards and our armor?
4) Should there be a No-Background version of the Logo for things like stickers? (I'm thinking specifically of our armor)
• In regards to #4, I suggest looking at how you select your Emblem in the Halo games, there is the primary portion of the emblem and there is the secondary/background, which can be turned off (such as a Skull sitting in front of a Hexagon), should we allow this?
5) Like Art Andrews has done for the main 405th Logo, should we consider making a basic version of the design that is only 1 color?

With all these things in consideration, before we put a final vote to it, I suggest that we come up with 3 reasonably different design concepts (we have 2 so far), and we work on finalizing them.
So far, we have:
• Rising Sun
• Thunderbird
• (To be determined)

I unfortunately have not revisited working on the Thunderbird design since my last post. I suppose I'll need to check out Inkscape as per Termhm's suggestion.
In part, I was hoping someone else who might have more experience with making logos would step up and make a version based on the concept that I provided.
I would still love it though if we all worked on each of the designs, and then compared them and constructively critiqued them until we have something we are all proud of.


Perhaps for the 3rd design, we could try to take our inspiration from the UNSC Logo, Noble Logo, ONI Logo, In-Game Emblems, and the symbols that were used for Ranks in Halo Reach, using the colors I listed at the top. That said though, I just thought I'd mention it. I don't want to stifle any creativity if someone wants to come along with a 3rd designs that has nothing to do with any of this.
 
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Thanks for the details, Wanderer, but I wasn't going to worry about specific colors until we finalized the design. I like working OK's feathers in, that's just a little beyond my PowerPoint skills.
Zero, I would prefer to leave the border rectangular so it works as a real life banner. If we agree to this one, we could create a smaller design for logos and armor that takes most of the same elements. Like the notched outline with sunbeams, but move the star to the middle, and make the bottom half blue. I realize i just made the AZ flag lol. But you see my point: make a compressed version with the different elements for avatars and decals.
 
I agree with all that you guys have said, I unfortunately am mediocre at best in PhotoShop and vector art programs. I suggest as many designs as possible get posted, we take what we like from each, do some final designs, and then look into deciding. As for the rectangular outline, I like the idea of the less traditional looking flag, especially as everything in halo is angular in some way, but this however merely a suggestion. I understand the need for simplicity as small stickers and designs on cards, pamphlets, and other small pieces. I like the idea of a flag sized design that's more complex, and an abbreviated design for small applications.
 
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