I create a logo for "Impressive Pixel Art" community.
Please give some ideas for this. 50х50 size. Here are my variants, I like the first.


Edited by Man_With_Gun - 16 June 2014 at 3:10am

My picks would be 2 and 3. 1 and 4 are too bland in silhouette and in detail, and I'm not too fond of the monochrome look either. 2 is interesting but perhaps a bit too busy, and 3 feels like it has a bit too much empty space though.

However. I don't think going for a pixel art approach is the way to go here. The overall look is okay but it's marred by the mediums graininess which clashes with the clean look of stencils and neon tubing. I like the colorscheme though, frankly I feel this kind of neon retro is one of the more strong and upcoming subcultures, so you're got something going for you there.

Personally I wouldn't try to build the link with pixelart by making the logo in pixel art, but by referencing aesthetics and elements used in pixel art. And by that I mean one very obvious thing; a square. You could go as wild as you want with vector shadows and glows and whatever, making it scalable rather than a fixed resolution, but still keep that link with pixels. Here's a couple quick mockups:

In the end I'd also advise you to use *.png for smooth anti aliased outlines and soft glowy bits. But of course *.png doesn't work well for animation.

You'll notice that my square is significantly smaller than your circle and triangle; this makes the text larger and the logo a (generally more workable) portrait layout. Wanting a square proportioned logo is a decent goal, but it doesn't really jive with the horizontal nature of text unless you're id software or some few-letter acronym.