urbanSTL

rheights wrote: ↑

Feb 26, 2018

It really bums me out that Amtrak trains don't pull into Union Station. With all the new investment (Ferris wheel, train park, light show, aquarium, not to mention the beautiful grand hall and hotel) it would really make a good impression on folks coming in from Chicago, KC, and smaller towns inbetween.

Although the multi-modal station does the job, it's a pretty lack luster welcome to our fair city. I'm always envious of how impressive KC looks when of pulling into their Union Station and walking through the beautiful grand hall. It has a big city feel and they have done a great job in activating the space.

Maybe once the gateway station ages, a new effort to bring Amtrak to Union Station will build momentum...it's such a no-brainier to improve visitor impressions.

I can certainly understand the point and KC truly does and will have a better station/situation for years to come.

But also agree with Aprice comments. Union Station IMO has outlived its need for use as a massive train station, especially with Amtrak. Even with additional Lincoln, River Runner and Texas Eagle frequency it would be hard pressed to come even close to the capacity that Union Station offered once upon a time and believe the practicality of current pass through arrangement/platform better serves Amtrak customer concerns at end of the day.

What I hope sooner than later is a better station, design, grander replacement & canopy for Amtrak current location along with much needed improvement from Alton into the city for Lincoln Service (going from 110 corridor to snail pace is pretty weak) as well as region entertaining commuter service between Pacific MO and Alton, IL one day

In the meantime, what I think would be a killer utilization and wishful use of Union Station is if Hyperloop's would locate its St. Louis stop underneath Union Station if Ellon Musk's tunneling technology is good and more cost effective as he claim as it is.. The hyperloop can run down I-70 corridor until it gets into the city, then go underground, and finally make a turn to south to get below Union Station as part of its KC to STL build out if it ever happens with the hope that it become the center of a Midwest spoke, or spider web of future hyperloop city pairs.

symphonicpoet wrote: ↑

Feb 27, 2018

jstriebel wrote: ↑

Feb 25, 2018

The typeface doesn't thrill me, but it's not really the face that I take issue with. It's the details. This may or may not mean anything to you, but instead of typesetting the letters on a curve, a warp has been applied to create an arc. As a result, there's distortion to the letters rather than simply rotation.

And the animal fleur de lis is a wonderful and appropriate concept, but the drawing lacks refinement.

I acknowledge those details don't mean much to a lot of people, but I do think they matter and those are the things that will wrankle me every time I see it.

To start, this might well be a concept and not the final design. That said . . .

We might simply have to disagree. Yes, it's quick and easy to lay the text into a text box and distort it these days. But if I were going to draw it by hand I'd probably want the verticals to radiate outward at least a little. Otherwise the spacing would probably look off to me. I won't claim to be any great shakes, but yes, I know exactly what you mean. Laying out text on a curve is always something of a bugger. I've designed a few logos and there's an outside possibility I know who designed this one. Which I like. And I'm fairly confident neither I nor you could do anything I'd like better for this particular project. It's witty. It does what it needs to do, which is look somewhat antique and a little playful. Taste is as taste does. Your mileage may vary.

Also: it does look better as a negative, I think, than a positive. The gold on black in the video looks nicer than the black on white in the image file. The graphic looks a little more iconic when smaller, and it gives the whole thing the air of a polished brass plaque, which helps a lot.

Anyway . . . carry on.

It's the M.

Here's an arc that I crudely drew into the logo:



Not only is the M physically wider than any other letter in the name (and sitting at the end of the word emphasizes its width, it's crooked. It doesn't follow the arc established by the other letters. It's like they placed the "St. Louis Aquarium" text on the arc, decided it was too left-biased, and then just stretched the M to make it better balanced from left to right.

I really like the design (not my favorite font either but it's not terrible), but the execution is just a tad off. That said, it may indeed be just the first draft.

-RBB

STLEnginerd wrote: ↑

Feb 27, 2018

If there was a need for a new transit center I would favor building it in place of the old wherenberg theatre.

Where is this?

aprice wrote: ↑

Feb 27, 2018

STLEnginerd wrote: ↑

Feb 27, 2018

If there was a need for a new transit center I would favor building it in place of the old wherenberg theatre.

Where is this?

It's in the Union station parking lot. The theater was the building that's under interstate 64 (it's still there).

https://www.google.com/maps/@38.6259846 ... a=!3m1!1e3

rbb wrote: ↑

Feb 27, 2018

It's the M.

Here's an arc that I crudely drew into the logo:



Not only is the M physically wider than any other letter in the name (and sitting at the end of the word emphasizes its width, it's crooked. It doesn't follow the arc established by the other letters. It's like they placed the "St. Louis Aquarium" text on the arc, decided it was too left-biased, and then just stretched the M to make it better balanced from left to right.

I really like the design (not my favorite font either but it's not terrible), but the execution is just a tad off. That said, it may indeed be just the first draft.

-RBB

I don't really see it as a kerning problem. The kerning is fine. The width of the M is a function of the typeface, right? Altering the kerning won't change that. You could make a narrower letter, but I'd worry it would look pinched. Further, I wouldn't make the arc so tight as what you're suggesting. That would only emphasize the problem even further. The tighter the radius the more you either have to distort the letters, or accept greater spacing at the top than the bottom. The looser radius actually helps with that. And moving the logo above the lettering, while less conventional and intuitive, draws the eye away from the ends of the name a little. Perhaps if you flatten it a little and use an M that's only very slightly narrower. I'm torn. But I essentially like it and I think we're picking nits rather badly. Ms are always a little awkward. They're just . . . problems. Meh. Again. You're mileage may vary. I think we will simply have to disagree. I'm unlikely to sell you and you're unlikely to sell me. Which is . . . okay. I actually like that it looks a little rough. Makes it feel older. From a less designed day. (For some of us this is actually a positive. Believe it or not. At times. I very much suspect some very skilled designers have used that from time to time to brilliant and subtle psychological effect. For good or ill. All depends who you're talking to; what audience you want to reach. This is trying to reach kids, I think, and not thirty something art school grads.)

Could be worse. Could be a W and not an M. (Had fits with a W just a week or two ago. Looked far worse than that. Was trying to set the word CREW vertically or on the diagonal. It . . . just looked terrible. I gave up. On the other hand, I am basically an amateur at this. I've had a little formal training, but my degree is from the other side of the building, so not much. I just do this for personal projects. Poorly. Crudely. But with panache and enthusiasm.)

There's designing to vintage effect, and there's simply overlooking details. Hard to know without talking to the designer, but this strongly strikes me as missing details or failing to execute in the proper manner.

I still think the arc effect is off. The letters shouldn't be distorted, they they should be rotated. Frankly, rotation is what would fit the idea of vintage notably moreso than a computer generated arc.

I'll also note that the waves that sit at either end of "at Union Station" are oddly positioned just above the start of that text rather than inline with, and the length of those lines is peculiar as well.

I rather hope this is a draft logo, but they went to market with it in a video, so I tend to doubt it.

Again, I think this is an excellent starting point, but I'd prefer to see the designer address the details or hand off the concept to someone who could. (As I don't know who the designer is, I'm not sure if the lack of execution is on their knowledge and abilities or on their judgement.) And if I were able to talk them into re-addressing the mark, I'd suggest maybe considering other fonts, perhaps not a free one. (Not to suggest the price of a font dictates quality, but this particular font is a little overused as a result of it being on a popular free font website.)

symphonicpoet wrote: ↑

Feb 28, 2018

I don't really see it as a kerning problem. The kerning is fine. The width of the M is a function of the typeface, right? Altering the kerning won't change that. You could make a narrower letter, but I'd worry it would look pinched. Further, I wouldn't make the arc so tight as what you're suggesting. That would only emphasize the problem even further. The tighter the radius the more you either have to distort the letters, or accept greater spacing at the top than the bottom. The looser radius actually helps with that. And moving the logo above the lettering, while less conventional and intuitive, draws the eye away from the ends of the name a little. Perhaps if you flatten it a little and use an M that's only very slightly narrower. I'm torn. But I essentially like it and I think we're picking nits rather badly. Ms are always a little awkward. They're just . . . problems. Meh. Again. You're mileage may vary. I think we will simply have to disagree. I'm unlikely to sell you and you're unlikely to sell me. Which is . . . okay. I actually like that it looks a little rough. Makes it feel older. From a less designed day. (For some of us this is actually a positive. Believe it or not. At times. I very much suspect some very skilled designers have used that from time to time to brilliant and subtle psychological effect. For good or ill. All depends who you're talking to; what audience you want to reach. This is trying to reach kids, I think, and not thirty something art school grads.)

Could be worse. Could be a W and not an M. (Had fits with a W just a week or two ago. Looked far worse than that. Was trying to set the word CREW vertically or on the diagonal. It . . . just looked terrible. I gave up. On the other hand, I am basically an amateur at this. I've had a little formal training, but my degree is from the other side of the building, so not much. I just do this for personal projects. Poorly. Crudely. But with panache and enthusiasm.)

Oh, we're definitely picking at nits here, and probably taking the thread too far off topic in the process. And the kerning crack was mostly just a chance to use that XKCD panel, which is awesome.

But re: the arc, the point wasn't how loose or tight it was, it was that the M appeared not to follow the same arc as the rest of the letters. My guess - and it's just a guess - is that the designer felt the arc was too tight, and rather than re-arc the whole thing he just decided to stretch either the left end or the whole letter grouping. Stretching the right side would explain both why it's wider and why it appears to be off the arc - which again, Ms are hard, and wider letters at the end of words tend to be visually exaggerated. But a pro doing manual kerning/typesetting should adjust for that. That's not done for block text but a designer will typically manipulate letter spacing and shape as a part of a logo creation.

Yep, agree to disagree and no hard feelings for the effort - respect, sir.

jstriebel wrote: ↑

Feb 28, 2018

There's designing to vintage effect, and there's simply overlooking details. Hard to know without talking to the designer, but this strongly strikes me as missing details or failing to execute in the proper manner.

I still think the arc effect is off. The letters shouldn't be distorted, they they should be rotated. Frankly, rotation is what would fit the idea of vintage notably moreso than a computer generated arc.

I'll also note that the waves that sit at either end of "at Union Station" are oddly positioned just above the start of that text rather than inline with, and the length of those lines is peculiar as well.

^ Your point re: rotated vs distorted letters being more authentic is a good one. And while I don't feel strongly about the length of the waves, I do agree with you that they should be in line with the text. BTW, do you know the name of that font? I know I've seen it before but have been unable to find it in the usual free font repositories.

-RBB

Of hand, I'm not sure about the sans serif that Union Station is set in, but the St. Louis Aquarium font appears to be Geared to me.

http://www.losttype.com/font/?name=geared

I might possibly have heard a complaint or two that someone took a draft and used it as a final design on a similar project. I'm not particularly sure of anything. But again, this is all preliminary advertising thrown together on a deadline. Not sure what firm even did this, though I do know folks involved in the project in general. (Which might be why I'm a little over sensitive. This might not be a random person getting drug through the weeds here. You know. Play nice. Be constructive. Criticize, but be gentle.)

As to rotation vs. warping: I'm really inclined to think that rotation would look odd. You're welcome to prove me wrong, but it would leave the spacing wider at the top than the bottom. And with the lettering on an arc I'm inclined to think this probably would have been drawn, not set with movable type. And if I were going to draw it (and I do draw letters from time to time) I would very probably create my verticals using radial lines coming from a common center point. As long as the arc isn't too extreme.

And remember: drawing to a deadline is always a pain in the butt. Sometimes you just have to live with the problems because there isn't time to fix them. Who knows how much time there was to create this thing? All that said . . .

At least it's not Papyrus. And heck, I won't claim my font choices are all that. I have about three that I tend to go to far too often. And I might possibly have abandoned one when it found its way into the subtitles of a crappy, amateurish, half billion dollar movie. In blue. That might have won an Oscar or two.

But yeah, we're in the weeds. I will try to shut up now.

symphonicpoet wrote: ↑

Mar 01, 2018

I might possibly have heard a complaint or two that someone took a draft and used it as a final design on a similar project. I'm not particularly sure of anything. But again, this is all preliminary advertising thrown together on a deadline. Not sure what firm even did this, though I do know folks involved in the project in general. (Which might be why I'm a little over sensitive. This might not be a random person getting drug through the weeds here. You know. Play nice. Be constructive. Criticize, but be gentle.)

I hope I didn't come off any other way. I just have an eye for details in the field (as we all do for our primary fields, I think), and I have extra expectations on "my" stuff. That is, the teams I root for, the school I went to, thinks that are of civic pride in St. Louis, etc.

Certainly not a bad logo, and absolutely a clever one. But if I could speak to the designer or the client (and as has been mentioned, it may well be client expectations and deadlines that are as responsible as anything), I'd encourage another round of revisions. Because it's really dang close to being amazing, and sometimes designs that are so close but stop short are more bothersome to me than ones that are outright bad or boring. Which isn't really fair, but you know.

On that note, I've been fortunate to work at a couple of great agencies/studios in town, including one now that does a lot of work for local restaurants. And Shad is absolutely right. You can immediately tell the difference between a place willing to put the effort and money (because admittedly, we're not cheap) into investing in their visual brand, and the places that do not.

It's not a perfect indicator, but in my experience, the places that do invest in their visual brand are also the ones investing in the food and the experiences as well, and are thus more successful because they "get it." Now, of course, sometimes the product is so good that the fact that they care only about that and not at all about the visual brand becomes their brand. And that's great. But those are few and far in between.

If visuals didn't matter and weren't connected to the rest of an experience, I wouldn't care to do what I do. But I believe they do. I really believe that if you're satisfied with good enough on the logo, there's a pretty good chance you're satisfied with good enough on other parts of your product too. And good enough isn't great. And the more our city's institutions (public and private) start believing that, the better we'll be.

I suppose the trouble is in part that I am the nephew that knows "photoshop." Sort of. I'd never call myself a graphic designer,but I do a little engraving, what with writing music and needing clean parts. (And enjoying art and photography and painting and sculpting and all that jazz as a hobby.) And I'm the guy that thinks "Geeze. Spire. Wow. So trendy. What idiot came up with that rewashed and half warmed over piece of unin-spire-ed . . . " Yeah, never mind. Probably someone here that's actually good. What was that about not trashing other people's stuff? Let's just say I have questionable taste and leave it at that.

Note: The spire logo is nice. It's just not to my taste. There's nothing about "Spire" or their new logo that speaks to local history and that makes me really dang sad. I want stuff that screams St. Louis. Not generic extra fancy. Laclede is a good name. A local one. An old one. And the old logo was pleasantly mod and said what it was pretty clearly. Weren't the sixties just in last week?

I'm the Luddite that likes Times New Roman and things that aren't Madison Avenue. And I have a close friend involved in the project. Though again, not necessarily this part of the project. But involved. In design work. On this particular project. So . . . I maybe took it too closely. Even though under other circumstances I'd probably agree with you whole heartedly. And even if this isn't actually a project that wows me. But I love that station deeply, so i want it to succeed. At least long enough for trains to miraculously come back. (I've had dreams of a Euro style mall/station with tracks underground and attraction in the shed for a very long time now. Pipe dreams, I might add. The hard stuff. I hope this goes unsaid.)

But if the kids want a fish tank . . . I hope it's the best dang fish tank ever.

Anyway okay, the font doesn't wow me, but it works. And that's enough for me. It disappears. And that's what I usually want most. Sometimes.

Right. I was trying to shut up. Sorry. Valid points. Yes, the M is too wide. I'll grant that. Yes, it's close, but a little polish wouldn't hurt. But . . . I'm a composer, poet, and roustabout. Not a graphics pro. I just . . . I don't know. I meddle.

shadrach wrote: ↑

Mar 01, 2018

I really like Spire's new identity. It feels fresh, modern, nimble, sophisticated, confident. It feels very European, very Dallas, Montreal, global. It doesn't feel 'St. Louis.' And that's a good thing.

Interesting. Just to be clear, we're talking this, right?

[/img]

If asked, I'd say it's not really any better than any other modern logo. I don't have a background in design tho.... Also, seeing "Dallas" mentioned in a sentence next to words like "sophisticated", "modern" and "very European" without a negative qualifier was a bit of a head scratcher I kid, I kid... Kinda

Not to interrupt the the nerdiest conversation this site has seen outside of the airport thread, but I took a detour and walked through the train shed last night. Managed to catch one of the... Fire shows?? Anyway, it wasn't too bad. I was one of 6 people actually watching the show but that was 5 more than I expected. There were a few people inside the seafood restaurant, still too cold for the front patio. No one on the back patio of Hard Rock either.
Anyway, my feelings on the Aquarium aside, I like what LHM is doing. They're creating an urban resort. I hope they do well.
I will also take any chance I can get to admire HOK's original design of the Union Station mall. I really do believe that it was extremely well done and I'm sad that it's being altered at all. And if it weren't for the stupid sales tax arms race going on in this region (and this country's obsession with free parking but we won't get into that), it would possibly still be open.

^ good to hear you enjoyed it... I knew that fire and light show has been going on for awhile and saw your video posted but never really heard what people thought of it. I think the plan is to also open some retail back there as well -- can't remember if it was small kiosks or shipping containers or retail trucks or whatnot but I'm not sure if they plan to add that before the ferris wheel and aquarium open next year.

So because I've been sitting on boring calls all day I decided to play. On the right is the original. On the left, now that I know the designer used the Geared font I manually scaled, rotated, and placed each letter along the arc:

So because it was hand-done the rotation isn't 100% perfect, but you you can compare rotated letters vs warped.

And again, this piques a particular interest of mine. It's not a criticism of the designer or of the project as a whole. And I agree -
the idea itself is brilliant; it's a great way to integrate the new with St. Louis tradition. It's just kinda fun to nerd out on this stuff.

-RBB

shadrach wrote: ↑

Mar 02, 2018

San Luis Native wrote: ↑

Mar 02, 2018

[/img]

yes.....and your point is?

No point. Just interested in clarification that this was indeed the logo you were so excited about.

rbb wrote: ↑

Mar 02, 2018

And again, this piques a particular interest of mine. It's not a criticism of the designer or of the project as a whole. And I agree -
the idea itself is brilliant; it's a great way to integrate the new with St. Louis tradition. It's just kinda fun to nerd out on this stuff.

-RBB

I can understand nerding out on stuff. Hell, I play with this junk as a hobby, even though ain't nobody going to pay me to screw stuff up. Pushed far too much time down that rabbit hole. Forgive me for taking it too personally for no good reason at all.

Yes, the M on the left looks better. The letters seem better spaced on the right, but I suspect you'd clean that up if given enough time. I'm assuming this was a quick and dirty eyeball job. I will gladly give you the point on the M. I just didn't notice it in a two second spot at the tail end of a video. (Had to freeze frame my way through it to confirm that, indeed, the M is screwy in the video too.)

So maybe rotation is the way to go here. But it's also probably a lot more labor intensive, since now you'll have to treat each letter individually as its own layer. Unless there's an Adobe (tm) shortcut to fix that. (Lord I hate Adobe. And lord do I miss Adobe. Simultaneously.) Of course, you're probably right. It's probably worth it.

*waves white flag*

^Thanks for the explanation. It's fascinating how much imagery and color can go beyond their face value and the psychology behind that.

Let me ask you this, tho: What would you say if I were to tell you that this was the actual intended logo:

[/img]

...and a mere printing error (discovered too late) were responsible for the actual logo.

LOL, sorry, I'm just messing with you dude.