Is A Part Of
Yes, I know I had addressed and thoroughly ridiculed Web 2.0 design before. But as I have gotten deeper into this graphic thing through PhotoSlop (which is where most of my creative efforts and sense of humor has been directed lately), I discovered that my favorite image-creating software (which is NOT Photoshop… or even the GIMP… I’ll give it a proper endorsement after I try the next upgrade) is pretty good at easily creating those totally clichéd effects. But as I was playing with it further, I came up with what I consider a couple of comedic inspirations.
First, the mutant offspring of the smiley face and the starburst/badge design seen all over Web 2.0 sites. I’ve been looking for a ‘mascot’ for my internet mini-empire, and I think he is it.
Second, after playing around with funky variations on the 2.0 buzzword ‘beta’, I stumbled on “beta than eva” (a pun based on ‘better than ever’ in case you didn’t notice). I liked it so much, I have even registered betathaneva.com to add to my collection of cool but unused domain names.
But before I leave the subject at hand, I’d like to say a few words about my old logo. That typeface, Bookman Bold Italic with Swash, has served me since long before the Web even existed. When I was in the radio biz, I had few opportunities to be the “funny disc jockey” I believed I could be (and the opportunities that I had didn’t support my claim very well). But I did get the opportunities to write jokes for other DJs. My first (and most famous) client was Mr. Beautiful Downtown Burbank himself, Gary Owens, and I was deeply honored to hear his great voice using my now-obsolete “smudged carbon copy weather” variations. Ya had ta be there. For a while I published a weekly ‘joke letter’, which wasn’t always weekly, where I first discovered my psychological problem with repetitive deadlines. Appropriately, my mini-publication had the self-effacing title “Wendell’s Weakly”. In the technology of the time (1979-1981), I typed my material on letterhead/masthead sheets and had them instant-printed (it was the era of prehistoric Kinko’s) for distribution to my never more than 88 subscribers. But designing those sheets and the “Wendell’s Weakly” logo introduced me to those cool rub-off letters and the Bookman typeface variations. And let’s face it, I fell totally in love with the W…
That logo just screams “COMEDY”, doesn’t it?
My first blog, in 1999, was OneSwellFoop.com (a domain lost during an extended period offline in ’01, although I did later get the .net), and I used Bookman with all the “swashes” and didn’t care if it made me look gay.
And it was harder to find all the “swashes” in computer fonts than in rub-on lettering.
I have played around with other typefaces for the logo
Yes, that’s Cooper…
And other stuff…
I even tried parodies of other logos once (were any of my current 17 readers with me then?)
Even some logo designs that would’ve forced a change in the whole site design (this one more inspired by than stolen from the logo for Comic-Con)
But I kept coming back to Bookman. Maybe I’ll do that again someday. Or maybe I’ll find an alternative to the Web 2.0 generic Arial Rounded I’m using now. As I’ve said before, stay tuned.
