Logo's: First Photoshop Drafts

Here are 4 of the potential logos I'm willing to use for the website. I've developed these a little in my sketch pad based off some initial doodles of my ideas, these are just rough drafts, as I haven't saved any of them as .png or done them in Illustrator to avoid pixelation, which I will do for the final logo idea.

This was pretty much the first idea that came to my head, I'm not sure if I actually like it. Although I do know I like the idea of it. The idea being that it's a pirate ship sailing on the pages of an open book stuck out me, but I'm not sure if I can develop it into a usable logo. The colours are a little off and don't really compliment black or white backgrounds. Another thing I've noticed (especially when comparing it to the other ideas), is that the dimensions are a little harder to work with, it's a very tall and thin logo. Which would also mean whatever background it's going to be on, will also have to be the same height. 


However, if the layout I choose somehow contrasts with any of the other logo's, in terms of dimensions (as they're all wider and lower than this logo), I can always see if this will do the job.

I was skeptical about the idea at first, when it was on paper. A few of the notes I added were things like 'is it obvious enough?' or whether or not I should draw something to show the bulb illuminated. But now I've actually got a digital version of it, it's probably one of my favourites. It's simple, bold, and I'd say it's reasonably recognisable. My only worry with it is that it doesn't stand up as well when there's no text with it, I also don't think it works as well as it does on a white background. 

 My third idea is again very basic, although I believe its more obvious what the website is about. While I like this idea, I think it's a little too formal for what the website is about. I think it may could be because of the font I've used, which is similar to Wikipedia font, if not the same. The lines are not meant to be in the logo, I actually just left them in there by accident, because I was using them as guidelines.

I think this is probably my favourite design, mainly because it's pretty flexible. It'd be easily arguable over which one is the best because they both work well on opposite background. I couldn't do this with the other ideas because I think they would lose what they already. 


Additionally, this idea allows the use of text and text without, the logo is largely interchangeable with a lot of different colour schemes. It does however possess a certain style which isn't very 'piratey' to say the least, meaning the rest of the website would probably have to follow suit if I used this logo.