Open Laboratory 2009 candidate logo design

A Blog Around the Clock asked for graphics for buttons to encourage people to submit nominations for the next Open Laboratory anthology of science blogging. The one above is my take.

The goal here is not to get people to vote for me, just to explain a little bit of the thought process behind the design. For comparison, here is last year’s logo:


Basically, I wanted to make my design to be 180° away from last year’s. So I started with the idea of a greenish hue for the background. Similarly, I looked for a font that was distinct from the heavy font used in last year’s logo. I wanted to play with the idea of expressing the feeling of “openness” in the type, so the letters are set very far apart.

The space at the top is deliberately unfilled here. The idea is that this space can be used to put in different things like “Nominate for,” “Judge for,” “Featured in,” and so on.

Win, lose, or draw, it was worth the bit of time I put in, because I learned a few new tricks in Corel Photo-Paint doing this.

Check out the other fine button designs by Daniel Brown (who blogs at Biochemical Soul) at A Blog Around the Clock, and leave a vote in the comments.