Of course this is possible, but please specify what you mean exactly: Do you want every flame to have multiple colours (a gradient of as many colours as you wish is possible) or f.e. 3 flames red, 3 flames blue?
I have made two examples for what I mean by my question.



In my opinion, both looks awful, although the top one is a little better. I'd prefer a one-color approach nonetheless.

Previously, there was already a gradient existing, fading from a dark blue (or red, green, whatever) to a slightly lighter tone.

It kind of reminds me of this:

The important question is: what audio sample was used to generate the frequency gram?

...



And another not very useful comment from me: blue flame represents "hotter" than red/orange/yellow flame. Extremely hot flame might show up as UV, but that's sort of hard to represent in a logo...

-brendan

@Silversight

You are right! doesn't look to good. Was just a thought. I still like the long flame with the writing "Tom's...". But the single color looks a bit boring.
Maybe you'll have a idea?

Anyway thanks for the try!

I like the pure-blue one.

2) reminds me of Atari Teenage Riot

Heh, had idea who they were til you pointed it out... does look quite similar though...

My vote's for this, so far. Nice and simple, looks good in B&W, not ugly. Works for me.

It would be nice to have a logo that can easily be represented by a 32x32 icon, if not 16x16.

...btw, when I look at TAK, "Tom's Awesome Kodec" immediately comes to mind.

Well, from the "crosshairs" logo it's fairly simple to get icons... although I'll admit that was part of the thought process as I laid it out. Another point in trademark design is the ease of vectorization, since that largely determines the accuracy with which a logo can be reproduced in the real world. Why settle for a blocky, pixelized enlargement of a low-res image if you can have a clean, crisp representation? (Unless the logo was supposed to use an old-skool approach in the first place!)
--> 32x32 : --> 16x16 :

One plus for this design is that it's entirely constructed from lines and circles; no fonts were harmed in the creation of the crosshairs logo.

Still, I also enjoy seeing what everyone else is doing! Keep up the good work.

- M.

Thats my first try. What do you think? :-)

edit: added another version

And of course, the requisite recursive backronym:

--- "TAK's A Kodec" ---

Or:

--- "TAK's A Kompressor" ---

-brendan

I don't know any application that uses the different codecs' logos as file type icons (they all use their own icons), but good scalability was also part of my design.

Besides: "tak" is danish for "thank you", whereas "tak tak" means "thank you very much".

I use a boiler plate to create individual registry entries and create custom icons when necessary but I'm not too good at this artsy-fartsy stuff. Personally I don't like the same icon for different file types, nor do I like the foobar approach of making small modifications to what is basically the same icon using a logo based on a player which really has nothing to do with individual file types. FWIW, I use foobar as a utility not a media player, and admittedly, I still use the Winamp icon for mp3 files, lol.

Funny, in Swedish (which I hope to start learning soon), /tak/ (spellt "tack") is thank you, and /tak tak/ is slang for thanks.

Actually, I had. Hope you all like it.

I like that second one the best so far, and I think having the text go around the circle would be real sharp.

Replace the "Audio" with "Auto" or "Automobile" in the first one and you got a really fancy logo for a manufacturer of car tuning parts. I like this association. Tweaking lossless audio codecs and engine tuning... I can see some similarities there.

Thank you! I tried that concept a few postings before, and although it works to a limited extent, there are two problems:

1. It doesn't look as good - the comet-like look almost vanishes because of the white circle being smaller.
2. The text becomes a part of the logo, thus the logo is incomplete without the text. For a text that long, text and logo have to be two entities which can be separated and/or rearranged.

While 2 sounds a little theoretical, there is one practical aspect: Readability. When you try to scale down a logo with circular text, you come to the point where the text becomes unreadable, but the logo is still rather big. With horizontal text as a separate entity, you can scale down the logo and leave the text unscaled or do without it.

Take corporate logos as an example. The Mercedes Benz logo comes to my mind, or Bayer, BMW, Ferrari, Hyundai (car manufacturers are indeed a good example). They don't have much text (if any at all) in their logos.


By the way: I like the second one better, too.

I throw one more out:

Reminds me of the ELP logo.

I really love M's design. Kind of simplicistic, retro-industrial

You are very creative! Thank you!

I don't want to stop you!

I just want to let you know about my current preferences:


I like it's simplicity. And the association to a well known name ("TDK") in the audio industry really doesn't hurt...


While the general layout does not look good for me, i like the combination of black text and some gray graphics.


I prefer the right one. One nice thing about it: If scaled down to 32 pixels the TAK-text looks better than in the first (Rivers1080p) one. Possibly one could try to generate a logo similar to Rivers1080p' but with the font of Silversight's logo?


Well, i told you earlier, that TAK is also the name of a really bad creature in Stephen King's book "Regulators", which i really like. This logo may reflect this association.

Unfortunately it's more difficult to identify the wave data in the background than in your first try:


That's only my subjective taste...

Thank you again!

Thomas

edit: Changed 'text' to 'font'.

@TBeck
I changed the Text of the Logo from Rivers1080p:


Maybe the font size of the text should be smaler that it fits on one line?



I don't read Stephen King. So I didn't know. ;-)

Sorry, i wasn't exact: I meant the font used for "TAK" !


For me "Lossless Audio" is sufficient.

TALK
"Tom's Audio (Lossless) Kompressor"

in M's design

would rock my socks off


later

That's actually plain Arial, with some tweaking of the anchor points. I'll get on it when I have few minutes left (in lunch break at the latest).

//edit: Avoiding double-posting, here's my answer to your request in three variations (of which the first one is pure egoism ). I also used the black-gray combination you said you'd like.

The dilemma when adding text is where it should be added. Beside? Below? Above? I'm not sure this approach will rock anyone's socks (off, on, or into any other state of sock-rockitude...) but here it is, for what it's worth:

- M.

Your design is very cool - I instantly have to think of a coffee shop or a discotheque with neon signs.

However, I think the 1/8 note doesn't quite fit into the rest. The head is too thick, the stern is too thin, making it stand out of its environment too much. The logo could do very well without it.

I'm still astonished by the complexity of that TAK "O" sign. When I first saw it I thought it was rather easy to reproduce, but after some 30 minutes of thinking I still can't figure out which lines/circles have to be drawn first, in which layer order, and when which ones must be subtracted from which other ones. Yet it looks so simple - great stuff.

Thank you.

Still playing with the eighth note... although the more I see it, the more I like it. (Self bias? Perhaps.) Originally I had that space empty, but decided it needed something. Since I'd opted to only spell out "Lossless" a musical note of some sort seemed appropriate, to indicate "Audio."

- M.

Too many text for a logo ?

Your first one was my choice...Maybe a mix with the silversight "flame" idea ?

MaB_fr

Hmm... cheese.

I think the 'target' logo has some merit, but Squeaky found this just too confusing.

I like Silversight's work so far, but also like the typography used in smok3's submissions (just the word 'TAK'). Looking at smok3's submission made me think that there are a lot of triangles formed by those letters, and made me wonder whether a bespoke font that created equal triangles may look cool. Squeaky was having none of it though - but he's just a little miffed since I made him run the maze.

Squeaky is cute.

Admittedly, the "maze" is more appropriate for a banner than a logo... the "target" (or "crosshairs," as I'm thinking of them now) could break out as a standalone logo.


Silversight's work is very clean and professional. Not sure how much merit mixing the flames and the crosshairs would have... although I'll admit I considered turning the eighth note into a flaming note!

- M.

I am really anxious...

Will Squeaky find the way out?

If we look at this page some days later, will Squeaky be still alive (or rotten...)?

It's easy to follow the smell of cheese, but what is the smell of freedom?

This logo definitely needs some additional text: "Mice shouldn't try this at home..."

What about a mascot?


Tom, the bear that loves lossless audio!

edit:
What about this:



Slogan:
Tom already loves it, and so should you!

Now that's different....






... and this one is just cute.

I've made hideous one too !!!







I know, it lacks some bear, but i wanted to prove that two good ideas together do not make a great one...

I've tried my best

Sorry

MaB_fr

Oooooohh....

- M.

Now I remember why this is so familiar.

While neat and would be one of the newer logos I like: do you really want TAK to be associated with the file sharing client BearShare?


They look awfully similar. I like the idea of an animal mascot, since I primarily use Monkey's Audio. TAK is powerful and fast, so what other animals have those characteristics? My vote would be a tiger or cheetah---some big cat. I'm conscious of the Thundercats' logo, even though I am a fan of the logo and big anthropomorphic cats.

Nothing kills a fun thread faster than mice and bears, right?

- M.

IMHO mice and bears are generally a good start to a killer thread. Add in a few penguins and/or badgers and things really hot up.

I think the lack of a clear favourite is more to blame.

We need more canvassing, more logos, or an overriding decision.

Exactly, but that's up to TBeck.

Anyway, I had a lot of fun creating my logo and watching the various other ideas, but I have to admit that it's quite difficult for me to think of another, essentially different approach after putting so much effort into the comet flame.
Mixing it with some kind of animal logo could possibly look cool, but wouldn't have anything to do with the codec itself, as neither its name nor its technology involves animals in any way (I think).

Maybe I should direct my attention to TAK's solidity instead of its speed, but I'd have to elaborate that further, which on the weekend I had no time and no software for.

Just make sure it doesn't lead to raptors, bunnies, or even raptorbunnies.

You win. If you could make it in the pure-blue flames, and shorter, this would definitely be my vote, at least.

IMO there must be something in that logo that is unique and/or will be remembered.

Here in that case, wouldn't it be the best to have a logo that goes beyond TAK or its name/technology?
Something new?

A good example is the fish of xiph.org. Vorbis without fish, that would be impossible!
I mean, what's the point in a logo for an audio codec, that, for example, contains a audio wave. Thats both obvious and unoriginal.

lots of good ideas for a sign, but beware of bad typography (forced italics are a big no no).

edit; i think you could merry this two, just fix the colors and get rid of the shadows

This logo looks a bit fascistic too me...

When I first saw this logo it reminded me to what I had in memory of "The Queen's Award to Industry" logo from the senventies with its cogwheel-like parts.
But now, after I actually found this one, it looks very dissimilar
Anyway, I still like it