need a bit of help with the bumper stickers

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so we've got an awesome graphic designer lady who's been helping us with lots of projects, one of them is the bumper stickers project.

she's made a bunch of really great ones, but there are a few she/we are struggling with. these few are just still not really recognizable: wofati: shrub (for a food forest forum) and swales:

i need your help because her and I have tried to brainstorm on how to make these few more recognizable, but they still aren't quite working so I need some new ideas on how to make such small images of a wofati, swales, and food forest better and more recognizable.

food forest needs to have trees in it. Swales is ok, but it should have at least one plant in it. Wofati should look like a cave or a house or both.
John S
PDX OR

Those are tough ones since it is a single color and relatively small in size. Two of the three are distinct in real life, but very hard to be sure of in icon form. On the opposite side, wofati ends up being something where there is some chance of recognition, but details become infuriating since too many makes it garbled, and too few makes it unrecognizable. I'll have to think on this one for a bit.

I think the wofati would be more recognizable face on rather than half profile.
The food forest needs trunks and round fruit otherwise it just looks like clouds.

The shrub, to me, looks like a cloud. I agree that a tree would be good/necessary for food forest. Maybe a little happy fruit tree with a bush under it?

As for the wofati, I think maybe it just needs to be more stylized? Perhaps making the door a whole lot more prominent and getting rid of the white line? I tried some fiddling in photoshop to try to convey what I was visualizing.

I'm at a loss for the swales... Maybe draw a hill with contour lines on it, rather than a map?

Refined the Wofati a little more, because it was bugging me. I'm sure it needs more work, but it was mostly just to visualize what I was thinking. Please feel free to use, transform or not use the image as you so desire!

Should it have a round door?

I know that the real wofatis don't have one yet, but it's part of the plan, I think. And many people already associate round doors with underground houses.

I can't help but see a cloud and the wind for the shrub/swale. Below is an example of a simple drawing with both a food forest and a swale. The edge of the swale could be easily mimicked with 1 color design and maybe just a tree/shrub/comfreyish plant would communicate the forest.

excuse my scratch and pic, but you'll get the idea

Swale icon, in color

Attempted swale icon

Hello every one,
I'm new to this forum and this is my first post.
I too have a suggestion for the swales icon.
In case this is helpful I can supply the original file of the drawing for alteration, improvement or whatever.
All Love
Mikki

The tough things about icons are their small size - everything needs to be simplified to read easily and not distract from the message. Here's a couple quick first passes - I think the cross section is a common mental view people have of swales....

Corey Vaughan wrote:The tough things about icons are their small size - everything needs to be simplified to read easily and not distract from the message. Here's a couple quick first passes - I think the cross section is a common mental view people have of swales....

That looks horrible, doesn't it?!

Lets zoom in a bit on the swale, and maybe simplify the elements....

Maybe something more abstracted, closer to the original icon...

thanks guys, everyone has been helpful. a few things:

1) they need to match the style and color of the ones I showed you. here are more for you to look at:

2) they need to match the size: 32x32

3) our designer listened to our advice about doing a tree with some shrubs and came up with this for a food forest: to me, this doesn't really scream food forest, but you WILL be able to hover over the image and a text will show up that will say food forest so maybe that's good enough.

4) i think your guys swale stuff is getting better, still need to see something in the style and size of our already made ones.

5) wofati: not seeing anything i absolutely love yet. i know that one is hard, but lets keep trying!!

Thanks for those examples and dimensions, Cassie, very helpful! Being able to use gradients really helps too.

32x32 is small, especially for an object that seems so oblong. I took liberty with proportions, but here's my Wofati concept(s)!

Cassie Langstraat wrote:

3) our designer listened to our advice about doing a tree with some shrubs and came up with this for a food forest: to me, this doesn't really scream food forest, but you WILL be able to hover over the image and a text will show up that will say food forest so maybe that's good enough.

I'm actually a fan of that Food Forrest Icon, I think it fits really with the style you guys have selected, and it definitely communicates different levels and dense production!

I like number 3 Corey.

My thought is, as long as it is a resonable form of what you are going for it will make it into the "culture" over a couple of weeks and be accepted.

Sometimes perfection is the enemy of progress. I am sure that may not be the most popular thought though, so, weigh that against me just being one fool.

Chadwick Holmes wrote:

Sometimes perfection is the enemy of progress. I am sure that may not be the most popular thought though, so, weigh that against me just being one fool.

Thanks Chadwick! I like 3 or 4, I think 4 may look a little nicer in a row next to the other icons.

The longer I go and create, the more your statement makes sense to me. And often what's rough or unfinished to an artist is perfect for the audience.

Still playing with swales, I'd really like to capture the simplicity of them, a tough chore with only 32 px!

I think Swales is the tough one for sure!

I am a woodturner and have messed with bowls till they are too thin to be usefull, I know how I get there too!

This one feels a little too crowded, but I think someone mentioned a tree...

What I know about designing an icon is that you want to pare down to an overly simplified image that people will quickly recognize as a stand in for the full complexity of the whole... The way that most of us associate "|" and "O" as on / off on electronic devices.

For shrubs / food forest, it would be great to show a partial guild (tree, shrub, vine or root), but at 32x32 that's difficult. Might not a single branch with fruit/nut on it also work?

For swale, I think going with the cross section view best, and using arrows under to capture the function of sinking water is good.

Corey's wofati icons are spot on. Best I think is 3rd from the left.

- Definitely a cliche (and that is why it works ) The Cornucopia displays an assortment of Fruits and Vegetables, And tho it has 'tis the season' connotations

is capable of showing abundance thru diversion in planting and harvest !

Just my two cents !!! Big AL

I like the third one too.

Corey, can you make number 3 of the wofati in an image by itself, 32x32 pixels?

Sure Cassie,

I can upload the SVG as well, if that would help your designer? I'll get to this as soon as I get back to my work computer in the studio, Tuesday morning.

Corey Vaughan wrote:Sure Cassie,

I can upload the SVG as well, if that would help your designer? I'll get to this as soon as I get back to my work computer in the studio, Tuesday morning.

As promised, see attached!

The SVG can be opened in Illustrator and edited as needed

Let me know if you need anything else!

Corey

Corey Vaughan wrote:
As promised, see attached!

The SVG can be opened in Illustrator and edited as needed

Let me know if you need anything else!

Corey

Thank you sir!

I know its black not blue and done in paint. But what about just a simple swivel line with a seedling on top of the mound. Would something really simple like this translate well to the bumper sticker style for the swale sticker?

OooOOOooooh, I just found these when fiddling around in my profile. They are so cute! I selected a few, but noticed that they did not show up. Do you know when they'll be implemented?

Nicole Alderman wrote:OooOOOooooh, I just found these when fiddling around in my profile. They are so cute! I selected a few, but noticed that they did not show up. Do you know when they'll be implemented?

They will be live in the next deployment. Not exactly sure when that will be, but soon. I will make an announcement when they are.

Cassie Langstraat wrote:

Nicole Alderman wrote:OooOOOooooh, I just found these when fiddling around in my profile. They are so cute! I selected a few, but noticed that they did not show up. Do you know when they'll be implemented?

They will be live in the next deployment. Not exactly sure when that will be, but soon. I will make an announcement when they are.

Try now!

Mine seem to have disappeared, but I think everyone else's might be working by now.

Mine seem to be working.