So I had an overwhelming number of people tell me that my color choices were "genius" and "the only colors people should use," and I'm not about to argue with responses like that, right? Unfortunately, I can't find those comments to show you, but just trust me, people loved my work.



The next step, then, is to create an icon for the logo. I have a few rules that I like for logos, which fly right into the face of most logo designs you see nowadays. I prefer logos that retain their quality when enlarged, shrunk, or placed on all types of media (business cards, stationary, clothing, etc). Complicated logos, which are usually pretty cool looking, suffer in form when the functional needs multiply. We want to keep that balance, here.

1. The icon should be strong enough to stand alone without the font/text
2. The icon should be simple enough to stand alone without colors
3. The icon should be scalable enough to the size of a favicon (that little logo that goes with most website tabs and bookmarks)
4. The icon should be easy enough for someone else to create in a graphics program (as in, an open source icon)
5. The icon should be simple enough to be on a baseball cap
6. The icon should be simple enough to be on a football helmet

With those points in mind, I opened up my Photoshop app and started to hack on the following icon, which I am now calling the "StarDrop."

The background:

1. Create a new image with 800 Width, 800 Height, 72 dpi, RGB 8-bit Color, and a background of transparent.

The raindrop:

1. Create a new layer
2. Using the Custom Shape Tool, select the Raindrop shape and used your mouse to drag the shape on to the layer (I started in the top-left corner and went down-right to about 650 px)
3. Center the tip of the raindrop at the 400 px mark
4. Add a stroke (outline) of the raindrop with color #000000 and a line width of 3px

The star:

1. Create a new layer
2. Choose another Custom Shape, the 5 Point Star Frame, and use the Shift+Drag to create the shape (I started at 200 px, drug down to 700 px, and right about 700 px)
3. Center the tip of the star to about 400 px W and 300 px H
4. Add a stroke (outline) of the raindrop with color #000000 and a line width of 3px

The colors:

1. Use the paint bucket to fill in the appropriate colors
2. Note: We haven't chosen the color placement, yet.

So, two shapes and three colors and that's about all it takes to design the StarDrop. Unremarkable in its look compared to logos that aim to shock and awe, but I think this logo can carry the brand for a while and it won't get stale with age...until we get a budget the size of the Wyoming GDP and decide that a two-month-long design process with a graphic design shop is worth our while (frankly, I hope it never is).



So, now that the shapes and frame has been chosen, we just have to decide the arrangement of the colors. Below are the options:

So, I prefer the blue-filled or red-filled StarDrops, but I wanted to get a few opinions on whether folks like the other three. Let me know if you have an opinion.



In the next installment, I'll add text and choose a font for the logo.