Artistic talent eludes me!

Jeff Horton

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The Heart of Dixie
I wish I had skills some people have. Yea, I can do most anything mechanical if I really want to do it. I have to remind myself I can see the potential in a pile of rust and turn it into a almost new looking woodworking machine and many can't.

But when it comes to simple artistic talents I am really lacking. I have an eye for it but not skills at creating it! I wanted an outline of the 3 leaves I have used in my business logo. I wanted it for several reasons and one big one was so I could make a stencil so I could paint my logo on my boats. My old one did not lend itself to stencils.

I finally got something and here is the finished product. Doesn't look quite like what I had in mind but it bet it took me two hours to get the outline of leaves looking this good. Of course it looses some of the detail when it reduced in size too. Making me less happy with it.

header6.jpg


I still need to play with the colors and find something better than black but I was just happy to get it to this point. I so envy people with talent that could have done that in 5 minutes!
 
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I so envy people with talent that could have done that in 5 minutes!

Jeff,

It looks pretty good to me. But if *you* don't feel happy with it, maybe you should try a few more tweaks...:dunno:

As to the other issue, think about it this way: yes, I've known people who could do that in five minutes. But that's because they've spent as many years developing those skills as you've spent developing your building skills. They say it takes about 10,000 hours to get *really* good at something. It would certainly take me 10,000 hours to learn to build boats as well as you do! ;)

If you think about it that way, what's a few more hours spent on working up a visual design? The effort may pay off in a big way... :thumb:

Thanks,

Bill
 
In the same way that you approach the design of your boats you should approach the design of your logo.

First: What do you want to comunicate with your logo? Quality? speed? good boat design?

Second: To whom do you address your bussines? Young people like surfers?
Middle age men like you? All ages? Families that like rowing together?
Your logo will have to appeal to the market you are pointing out.

Then once you know all this it is a matter of being critical with what you draw and really analize if it is suggesting or communicating what you have decided to communicate with it.

In the same way that a sleek form suggest speed and a chubby form suggest softness and heavyness, you have to convey the idea you want.
But first you need to know what is that idea. It is like talking, one needs to know what one wants to say and then find the words to say it.

Don't desperate, it is not easy, and needs a lot of work to design logo well.
When I was at school we had to propose 30 different concepts, then choose three of them and make 30 variations of each to finally choose one and further refine it.:(

Instead of trying to draw the outline of those leaves, why not get a picture that you like and trace their outline? That would get you the proportions right and save a lot of struggle.

Then analize where in your logo do you want to put the enphasis, on the name or on the drawing or both?
 
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