Excellent points Ben and Carla, I will visit Beaverhead and see what you
have done but wanted to send a quick note this morning that the county maps
like you talked about are available for all counties on Wikipedia and in
pubic domain. Very easy to add one to your county.
Tah tah for now,
Karen
On Thu, Feb 23, 2012 at 12:25 AM, Andrus <RockHaven(a)3rivers.net> wrote:
Please to remove Allison's logo, eh?
(the Montana shape containing a photo of an old homestead)
I guess that answers one question.
We would have used some version of that logo, but for the
cumbersomeness of putting in the credit. Apparently now that is not
even an option. Curious that it has been used all these years and
now its killed for considering to make it official.
Yes, we need an official one. And if anybody demands credit, I
suggest it be burned into the graphic to simplify and insure its
there. But its probably more proper for a volunteer group to have a
volunteer logo, since it ought to be somewhat of a group effort anyhow.
By way of comments toward goals of a new logo (not to degrade the
venerable efforts of the past) the present graphic at the top of the
State page is more like a banner or masthead. Too long for logo
status. The idea of the representation of terrain (mountains to
prairies) is quite nice, but there's hardly enough room in a logo to
do it justice— unless we could come up with a single image that
naturally made the transition. I'm fine with representing the Indian
culture, but even though I have very little (Cherokee) Indian blood
in me, the painted warrior is repulsive. Striking, but offensive. I
much prefer to present a more wholesome aspect. Why not use
something more such as a distant view of teepees, horses, and maybe
buffalo, such as is in the Karen's postage-stamp prototype:
<
http://glacier.mtgenweb.org/pics/MTGWmap.jpg>
Speaking of which, it is very pleasing in appearance at the size it
displays-- and even better at its full size :-) But my concern is
that when it is reduced to logo size, it will lose too much detail.
Aside from that, the text of the name is too large. Actually I would
think it should be up in Canada so as to not interfere with the
graphic, which then would clearly be identified as Montana. And for
overall appeal, the text might do well to be livened up a bit with a
contrasting color rather than blend in with the nice earth-tones of
the rest of the graphic. That might be a challenge, though, with the
various colors it will be used with.
It is indeed unfortunate that official choices were established which
don't seem to serve perfectly, and have thus been widely diverged
from. The two-letter USPS code is compact, but horrid for
communication. It may be great for the url and the abbreviation, but
otherwise it must be clear what the whole state name is. I was
writing up a complaint against the mandatory inclusion of the word
"project", but I see a message came in implying that it is NOT
mandatory. Thanks!
I would caution against pushing very hard to mandate changing logos
for containing MontanaGenWeb instead of MTGenWeb, however worthy a
goal it may be. It seems to be primarily independent opinionated
types who do so much work with no money and very little thanks.
Considering how many counties are unattended, it may be that forcing
such an issue will push more over the edge. I strongly suggest
Montana should be spelled out more prominently on the logo than the
MT, and ideally both can be worked in.
That said, the Montana UsGenWeb Archives logo/banner would be one
begging to be fixed. It could be fixed rather easily if someone had
the original photo, but frankly its not clear what is truly should say:
<
http://usgwarchives.net/mt/images/montana.png>
& <
http://glacier.mtgenweb.org/pics/montanaarchives.png>
Was the lowercase 's' in US actually intended? It does delineate the
elements, but Us for United States is even worse than the all-too-
common Mt for Montana! And not to go off on a tangent, but are
County names really devoid of the state in their name? How many
counties do we have across the US with identical official names?
Fortunately we've not been faced with duplicates, but it would seem
that plenty folks would be. :-)
I do like the idea of the state outline for the logo. It is a very
recognizable shape. Were we in the Dakotas, Colorado, or Wyoming, or
such I would likely think differently. :-) I also like the outside
to be transparent unless it is made with a distinct integrated
border. The postage stamp begs for the ripples to be transparent,
for example. But darn it— jpeg doesn't allow transparency and its so
much more compact file-size for photo images.
The logo we made for Beaverhead has rather jaggy edges.
<
http://www.3rivers.net/~rockhaven/BhGenWeb/>
There's a better map now available from our tax dollars:
<
http://www.nris.mt.gov/gis/gisdatalib/downloads/county2.gif>
And we have an enhanced copy with the names Mineral & Wibaux pulled
away from the border, and the joggles taken out of the border with
Wyoming, if anyone is interested.
Perhaps to stimulate ideas for a logo, it would be useful to have
some representative Montana images to look at. Having an idea and
implementing it is quite a different task.
I like the idea of county GenWeb logos highlighting the county in the
mini-map of the state such as Karen's at Glacier. It makes them so
practical. Maybe it's not so easy to make them pretty though.
<
http://glacier.mtgenweb.org/pics/8mtgrid1.gif>
And of course County logos are outside the present subject... but
perhaps those interested could keep that in mind as the source maps
are churning around.
Ben & Carla Andrus
| BeaverheadGenWeb county coordinators and
| webmasters for BeaverheadGenWeb &
| BeaverHead Hunter Genealogy Society
|__________________________________________________