Band Name (and logos)

[The Suitor]

Plight of a Fool



The band likes it, and my wife and a couple other people hate it. So, critique it! I'd like to see who likes and who hates it...

I sure hope critiquing a band name can be pulled of on this forum... It's so difficult it should be an art of it's own.

EDIT: Added some concepts to better picture it. C&C those too Now I'm sure I wont get cussed by the moderators

[ildu]

Well, you should remember that your wife is the only one who's gonna be the most brutally honest with you. I'm disregarding the upper image, because I wouldn't know where it would be used on, but I don't really like the image as an album cover. The font is just so generic and doesn't fit, and the face looks more like it doesnt exist, than been redacted.

[InCreator]

I don't like it much neither.
Then again, I don't listen to music that could have something like this as a cover.

Why?

* Contrast is too low (usually bad idea on black&white images)
* Blood-like-thing feels more like someone spilled cherry juice onto album
* Text on upper image part stirs with photo too much, it's hard to read what's there
* Image below, well... To be honest, I find removing face and leaving heavy bunch of messy hair kind of nauseating. I really don't like it, and would probably avoid it like in a store a cheap horror movie.
* (rushed?) Face removal left a load of artifacts. Maybe you simply didn't notice, so play with contrast and brightness on your monitor to see it.
   
  -- I guess you deleted the face and tried to re-texture plain color where face was. This is not proper way to do it. First, get X-Fader and use it on this grainy texture to make it tile. It's only a matter on 5 seconds. (cut as large piece of texture as possible, open it in x-fader, click on "xfade" icon, play with sliders if you wish, though not needed, and resave now tiling texture to use it on photo.)
Then, make a new layer (above face photo) and put a large chunk (or rather - tiling chunks) of texture onto it, so it covers whole face. And finally, erase texture's edges to make it round and cover face only. This way, you don't have to invent a bicycle.

What I do like:

* Those upper two images. It has somewhat old-school feeling, like grandpa's graduation or wartime photo. And yet, eyes look so young and crazy and-- It's quite cool. Clothing and mugshot style adds alot too.
* Lack of color on lower image. Light beige and black text gives somewhat professional feeling.

I would try some other fonts though.

[Jack Sheehan]

I don't like the name, sorry. It sounds far too whiny and doesn't exactly roll off the tongue.

[radiowaves]

What, you call these two big chunks logos? Just some font and a really crappy background picture isn't logo at all.

In classical terms, logo was actually only text that was shaped to be more illustrative, and no, it wasn't so much stuck in font. Today, a logo also means an icon which can go hand to hand with text.

I don't care about the name, I am no name expert but that shure is lot to call those to pieces of junk logos.... Think about it,  logo indicates the pureness and taste of the band. Right now, specially considering that your band actually liked it, it seems your band is just a bunch of tasteless kids.

Shure, you are at the beginning stage, but I suggest you develope some style and taste first, then make or ask somebody to make a logo for you. You know what? In a good logo, every quarter of a millimeter has gone trough consideration, you have no idea what thought process good logos have had. Right now, these two so called logos can be a disgrace to your band, they are part of it you know, create the imago. Get it?


Or... Are you more talking in the terms of album cover?

It is hard to give some real critics because I just don't understand what do you want, a cover or logo, imago? Right now, the small picture is a small banner and the other one I can call a cover...

However, I can give you some tips.
First, don't just choose font by looking at it, you have to match it with surroundings also. In the first picture, it is hardly readable on that background. Second thing you should consider that it is not a very good idea to put text over whole picture, it results in lacking any focal point. I would put a smal text on the bottom, left side, and use red or white. Third: I assume you are aiming at something brutal. Well, that font just ain't gonna do it. You have a few choises with the font: one, to use some blocky arial like font, or two, use some minimalistic or modern helvetica type font and make the reading small so that brutal image makes the deal.

And the reason why blood on the first picture doesn't look quite like blood is probably because its too transparent. Also, dried blood is quite brown.

[The Suitor]

Me and and the bassist played in my former band for 6 years. After the split we're just trying to make this thing get up and going. I tried to remain unbiased about the name. But I think someone said it was too whiny, and I have to totally agree. I can't stand emo shit along with its women jeans wearing songwriters. (No offence to emo kids  ). 

I mainly wanted a critique on the band name. As for the concept art, I just put them together really quick as I'm not much of an artist myself. But I figured why not.  Thanks for all the tips and stuff, btw. It's actually helped me a little in that area.

But anyway, I've got enough feedback now, and the search for a name is still on. Again,  Thanks for all the help!

[Evil]

Really, it depends on the style. I think people get too into their band names and album art and stuff, and they don't even think about the music. Crank out like 5 tracks and then base your name and art off of what you have accomplished.

[voh]

It's an entirely forgettable name. The images, well, don't like them, reasons are similar to those who already posted on that, so I won't.

But the name just screams 'amateur' to me. Now, I gotta say I dislike 'of a' in any name. A Fool's Plight would be better, but it's still kinda whiny.

I'd go with Evil's suggestion.

For my band it was fairly easy - it's a pop culture reference

[Minimi]

I got a band recently, and I came up with the bands name of "Good4Nothing" everyone digs it... we make PunkRock & Metalcore. I could ofcourse show you our art, but then I'd have to kill you!

ps: let us hear some recordings of your band. We hadn't had officially a band name after we had about 20 songs lol... everyone kept asking, whats the name of this band? lol
The art isn't really convincing, looks more like a photoshop experiment <-(how the hell do you spell experrimmend?!)

[Emerald]

How about 'Plighter'.


For some reason that just sticks in my head.
Often the best band names are ones that don't immediately make sense (but sound like they do), until you start to really think about it (and get high), and then it all suddenly clicks and the whole world goes green and you're like 'whoaaa'.

[deadsuperhero]

About the second image....that looks vaguely like Richard Stallman...

[Phemar]

Actually I think it looks exactly like him...

[skitzo]

Give some definition to the faceless picture. something along the lines of Breathless Mahoney's NO FACE character from Dick Tracy (the movie) maybe.  Then make it look kind of gorey if ya want.