New Permies Overalls Icon

Okay here is the new thread about our new icon! After much searching and many sad attempts at graphic design on my part, WE GOT IT! After all that struggle, Jocelyn's graphic design friend emailed me and I told her what we needed and it was done in two minutes.. Crazy. Anyway, hooray for it being chosen. Here it is:






Now, we aren't quite done just yet. As you know almost every website uses a different size and style of the typical social media icons so we need to be able to offer people at least a few different sizes and styles and colors. SO I am just going to post a bunch of different options on this thread and we can send people here if they want to use the icon.

The idea is that if you or your website has a thread here on permies, you can put the icon next to your other social media icons and when people click on the overalls, it will redirect them to your thread on our forums. Similar to a facebook or twitter icon on someone's page.

Anyway, I will start posting some different colors and styles of our new icon.

Here is a little 3D version.

Cool, I like it!

Here are just a few colors. Anyone like any of these?

How about green background, blue overalls, yellow stitching?

Cassie, does it need to be just too colours, or can it be more?
If two: denim blue overalls, 'permies beige' background/stiching (if you know what I mean )
Or blue overalls, yellow background/stitching?
One way or another, I'd be interested to see the overalls in a couple of 'denim' colours.

It sort of needs to be 2 colors.. Like think of the facebook icon, only two colors, the twitter icon, only two colors, the pinterest icon, only two colors. We want it to be able to fit in with those.

Here are some other colors in bigger sizes.

a few more in different colors and sizes

I like any of those colors....I guess it depends on where and how they are used. Are you looking for just one color to identify the icon? If so, my favorite would be the shades of green and then maybe the tan kind of color like the forums.

They will be used to be put right next to people's other social media icons. So they need to be able to sort of match those, you know what i mean?

Cassie Langstraat wrote:They will be used to be put right next to people's other social media icons. So they need to be able to sort of match those, you know what i mean?

match color wise? and size too, I guess.
.... and by the way, this icon is so perfectly recognizably bib overalls....congratulations!

not the exact colors, but the same "style" I guess you could say.. we don't want our icon to be the exact same blue as the facebook icon, but we do want it to be a two color scheme like that so it sort of matches. yes size needs to match but size can be changed fairly easily to match whatever website it will be going on.

Cj Verde wrote:How about green background, blue overalls, yellow stitching?

Leila Rich wrote:If two: denim blue overalls, 'permies beige' background/stiching (if you know what I mean )
Or blue overalls, yellow background/stitching?
One way or another, I'd be interested to see the overalls in a couple of 'denim' colours.

If you guys can create those, then go for it. But we have pretty much exhausted what we can get on fiverr. So, if you want to try to tackle those, give it a shot but I don't think I can.

Ahh never mind about that last post I just made! Ha One of the designers came through!

Cassie Langstraat wrote:It sort of needs to be 2 colors.. Like think of the facebook icon, only two colors, the twitter icon, only two colors, the pinterest icon, only two colors. We want it to be able to fit in with those.

So the image below won't 'fly' I suppose?

Cassie Langstraat wrote:Ahh never mind about that last post I just made! Ha One of the designers came through!

I'd like to give it a go anyway.
I know nothing about this stuff; is there free software for techno-idiots that'll let me change the colours simply?
I tried just doing it in 'paint.net', but recolouring the fine detail (like stitching) was hopeless

Yeah I don't really know. I don't do graphic design stuff. And I am not sure if that will "fly". We will just have to see what Paul says.

You may be able to download a student or trial version of Photoshop. I learned photoshop in college and did some cool stuff then. I'll see if I can get a version of it and mess around with this some.

Don't we want some sort of logo design on it? No text? All this logo says to me is "cover all". Who made the cool cartoons of Sepp on the permies site? Why can't we get them to work on this? Or maybe I am missing something?

I like the one with blue overalls! It's a little mysterious, but that's part of the charm. I think it could be done with just two colors, but I like that ^ just like it is.

Do you happen to have an SVG version of the icon? It's best to have vector format so that you can size it up without any decrease in quality. Plus it would be easy to edit in either Inkscape or Gimp (both are free).

My personal favorite is the sage green bi-color one (http://imgur.com/o1juojV).

Does it matter that the majority of the other sm icons, i.e. fb, twitter, g+, etc. are either blue or red? Social media speaks to our herd mentality and sometimes there is safety in numbers. Don't get me wrong; I like the idea of standing out in a crowd. I'm just exploring the idea.

-AA

Myke Smith wrote:Do you happen to have an SVG version of the icon? It's best to have vector format so that you can size it up without any decrease in quality. Plus it would be easy to edit in either Inkscape or Gimp (both are free).

I fully agree that SVG format would make this a lot easier. What program was used to make the original graphic?

Also, what about these colors? (This was done in GIMP, and I realize the quality is terrible, but that was the best I could do with the resolution and rasterization of the original.)

Overalls on ImageShack

I also wondered about blue on brown, but it is true that most social media icons have white as one of the two colors.

Jonathan

Jonathan Krohn wrote:
I fully agree that SVG format would make this a lot easier. What program was used to make the original graphic?

I also wondered about blue on brown, but it is true that most social media icons have white as one of the two colors.

She said she made it in illustrator.. :/ I don't know what a SVG is. Can you convert an image to that sort of format?

Like I mentioned above, we wanted to have it in the two-tone style to match other social media icons but several other permies suggested that we try the blue brown colors so that was just a trial color.

Aaron Althouse wrote:Does it matter that the majority of the other sm icons, i.e. fb, twitter, g+, etc. are either blue or red?

As much as we want to match the STYLE of those other icons, I don't think we want to actually have the same colors. Typically the colors of an icon tend to match the colors of the website.

Ray Cecil Iii wrote: Don't we want some sort of logo design on it? No text? All this logo says to me is "cover all". Who made the cool cartoons of Sepp on the permies site? Why can't we get them to work on this? Or maybe I am missing something?

There isn't much point to put any text on this because it will most likely be in a 32x32 dimensions. Those are the typical dimensions people use to put social media icons on their website. With an icon that small you can't read or see anything but the overalls.. I have no idea who made the cool cartoons of Sepp but whoever it is is not available or else Paul would have told me about them.

Cassie Langstraat wrote:
She said she made it in illustrator.. :/

Illustrator is vector so you're good to go!

My photoshop skills are lacking, but here is brown with a light denim blue. Just the two colors, for the simplicity other's mentioned...

Here's light olive/sage green with brown.

Here's the teal version.

I do "know a guy" (my brother) who is a graphic artist and can make this a lot cleaner and in whatever colors you want... and do it in just a few minutes. If the powers that be decide what they want, I can ask him .

And, sorry about being so terse--my baby is fussy, so I'm in a hurry!

Cassie Langstraat wrote:
She said she made it in illustrator.. :/ I don't know what a SVG is. Can you convert an image to that sort of format?

Nice! She should be able to provide you with an SVG then. Unfortunately, we can't easily convert a PNG to SVG without tracing the bitmap but it wouldn't look as good as the original.

DISCLAIMER: This is one man's opinion. We all know about opinion's and their 'worth' so take all of this at face value.

I think it's overcomplicated and under values the message. The stitching isn't necessary to convey what it is. It should be straight on, not cocked to the left. You have to look at it from the POV of people who have no idea what permaculture is. That logo will not register with them. Now granted, if you're going for a logo that's to only be understood by the 'in' crowd, it's a good start but still needs refinement. But if I'm Joe Ninetofive and I see that; I'm not sure if it's a face, a monster or what. Think about city folk who literally don't even know what overalls are. These are the types of things you have to think about, dependent upon what type of demos you're trying to reach. Even then, most people will simply assuming 'farming' and not the higher level thinking of what permaculture really is. I think the overalls as a representation of the importance of what's going on here comes off a little hokey. When I think permaculture I think: vegetation, animals, circles, design, land, harvest, etc. In my mind I see the letter "P" very prominent, with integration of a circle somehow, and a representation of everlasting vegetation by design. Now that sounds like a lot, but through whittling and distillation of ideas it can be done.

Logo development is incredibly difficult and frustrating. Never settle. Credentials; Former graphic designer, social media director/brand manager of nearly a decade.

I have to say I completely agree with J Hampshire. I suppose if this logo was specifically to promote Paul then that would be a good logo. But if the logo is to be seen and recognized as permaculture by the masses on social media, it may not register with most people.

i like it because not only does it look like overalls, it looks like a giant smiley face.

J Hampshire wrote:I'm not sure if it's a face, a monster or what. Think about city folk who literally don't even know what overalls are.

[quote =Cory Collins]i like it because not only does it look like overalls, it looks like a giant smiley face.

My husband really wanted a denim-colored overalls. To maintain contrast, I made the background tan... Now it *really* looks like a face! Whether that's good or bad, I don't know!

I cleaned up the light denim and brown version a little, as well.

Nicole I really like all of the versions you created!!

So to clarify for me, who's never clicked an icon (not on purpose anyway )
We want something that would sit with the tweetie bird, the f and the g+ on a website or whatever, right?
They are all tiny, self-explanatory and really basic.
Sorry Cassie, I know you've been going round and round with this,
starting in the banner thread
but I agree with posts that the 'overalls' icon concept we're discussing is totally different thing from the tweetie bird, the f and the g+ etc...
I know Paul liked the overalls idea, and he's the boss of course
but maybe we need to back up and just think 'tiny, self-explanatory and really basic'

The lowercase 'p' is from this icons thread

So I'm thinking right back to basics: permies 'p', tree, flower, leaf...

I like Nicole's Smily Overalls .jpg the best

Leila Rich wrote:So to clarify for me, who's never clicked an icon (not on purpose anyway )
We want something that would sit with the tweetie bird, the f and the g+ on a website or whatever, right?
They are all tiny, self-explanatory and really basic.
Sorry Cassie, I know you've been going round and round with this,
starting in the banner thread
but I agree with posts that the 'overalls' icon concept we're discussing is totally different thing from the tweetie bird, the f and the g+ etc...
I know Paul liked the overalls idea, and he's the boss of course
but maybe we need to back up and just think 'tiny, self-explanatory and really basic'

The lowercase 'p' is from this icons thread

So I'm thinking right back to basics: permies 'p', tree, flower, leaf...

Leila,
I like this lowercase p. Its simple. It has a "p" for permaculture.

Uhhhhhh.....has anybody ever thought of using the permies.com sickle with a upper case "P" I mean, if we are trying to advertise Paul Wheaton and his brand of permaculture than by all means use the overalls. But if it is supposed to represent permies.com then why not use the permies.com sickle that we can all see at the top of this page?

Ray Cecil Iii wrote:has anybody ever thought of using the permies.com sickle with a upper case "P"

re the sickle: I can't remember what the discussion around that was.
I'm pretty sure we've talked about the lower case p being an integral part of permies', er, 'brand' at some point,
although the 'p' on the rocket stove/sickle design above looks like upper case, so...basically I have no idea!
Here's a version of the sickle.

Looking at that: flip it and tweak it slightly and it's a stylised 'p'...
I just noticed Pinterest has a 'p' as its icon

Leila Rich wrote:

Ray Cecil Iii wrote:has anybody ever thought of using the permies.com sickle with a upper case "P"

re the sickle: I can't remember what the discussion around that was.
I'm pretty sure we've talked about the lower case p being an integral part of permies', er, 'brand' at some point,
although the 'p' on the rocket stove/sickle design above looks like upper case, so...basically I have no idea!
Here's a version of the sickle.

Looking at that: flip it and tweak it slightly and it's a stylised 'p'...
I just noticed Pinterest has a 'p' as its icon

Rotate this icon 115 degrees clockwise and you'd have a stylish p made from the sickle. Although, do people still associate sickles with socialism? Just a question.....

Ray Cecil Iii wrote: do people still associate sickles with socialism?

I think that was brought up
It may well be a cultural thing-I think over here you'd really need a hammer in there for people to think 'so, communists click on that then'

I much prefer the lower case "p" but in denim with yellow stitching in a nod to the overalls: