If you’re a regular to the Photocritic site, you’ll notice that this page looks a little bit different than usual – well, if you’re reading this on the page, that is. If you’re reading it in a feed reader, then it’ll look perfectly normal, but in that case, just this once, come have a look, because I’d like to show you something I’m a little bit proud of; the new Photocritic logo.

It’s a while ago since I asked now, but after I redesigned this site in the beginning of February (Yup, everything you’re looking at here is my heavily modified design-hack based on the B Social theme for wordpress), I’ve been meaning to get a new logo. I haven’t had one for quite a while, actually, and I figured it was time to change that.

Trickier than it looks…

The problem is that it’s actually damn tricky to design a logo which screams ‘Photocritic’. What does a photo critic look like? Is this site even about photo criticism anymore? It started off as a DIY blog – but that was mostly because the first article I posted on here was about DIY stuff. pc-new-logo

Since, as you’ve been able to tell, Photocritic has been a lot less about equipment (although we do have a lot of articles about equipment – if you’re curious, check out the equipment category list), and a lot more about doing fun things with photography.

In trying to design a logo, then, I was stuck with the ‘how the hell do you illustrate ‘fun with photography’. I had some ideas, tried them out, and subsequently threw them all out. I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but I’m not much of a designer (I’m not much of a photographer either – for proof, check out my Flickr account), so finally I gave in and asked for help via Twitter, which got me a few responses, including one response from the amazing Oliver Ruehl.

Logo concept

His idea was to get a lot more abstract with the logo – moving away from the idea of ‘pictures’, and towards the idea of ‘taking photos’, which was a shrewd idea. From here, he came up with some interesting concepts, including the idea of using a split-image focussing screen as the main element of the logo.

This has a couple of benefits: If you have no idea what one of those things is, then the logo still looks distinctive and recognisable. If you do, you’ll probably be overcome with nostalgia and reach for your analogue SLR camera, just to re-experience the brilliance of manual focussing without the guesswork.

Applause!

Check out Oliver’s work on Flickr, stalk him on Twitter, and check out his website while you’re at it – he’s a legend and a gentleman. Hereby publically; Thanks for making me an awesome logo, Oliver!

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