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Louis' Family Restaurant Sign (before/after)

aandrews19

New Member
This job is in progress, and this is where I'm currently at with the design. Thoughts?

Before-After.jpg
 

Craig Sjoquist

New Member
Way Way Way better indeed.

Anther possible change to think about is place ... family. under the name in a lighter font to the right of L..& then you would have a much tighter brand logo & with restaurant spread out in that panel would read even better & stronger.
 

visual800

Active Member
One thing thats hard to do is critic someones work without sounding arrogant. Compared to what they had huge improvement but it needs a little,something. Maybe a drop shadow, lite grey on the Louis. Not bad though
 

aandrews19

New Member
One thing thats hard to do is critic someones work without sounding arrogant. Compared to what they had huge improvement but it needs a little,something. Maybe a drop shadow, lite grey on the Louis. Not bad though

There IS actually a light grey shadow on there, but you can barely see it now that I uploaded the image here. There is also a bright green stroke offset to the inside of "Louis'"

I also feel like it needs something more. Maybe I'll try going with a little darker grey drop shadow.
 

bob

It's better to have two hands than one glove.
A huge improvement. But then a tagger with a blank board and a spray can would be a huge improvement.

Your effort is awful, merely less awful than the original.
 

Rick

Certified Enneadecagon Designer
Though it is an improvement, it's only a slight improvement.

I would think logo first, then lay the sign out with it.
The proportions are awkward, "Louis" is kinda hard to read, too flat, needs some dimension, why just a box?
 

Jillbeans

New Member
Your spacing needs some help.
ouis needs to be tighter to the L and better nested onto the L's leg.
Too much spacing between FAMILY and RESTAURANT and you don't need dots on either side.
I'd do a stepped in border rather than a flush one (leave a white edge) and also on your hours sign the spacing needs some TLC. I don't use lower case on PM because I don't like the dingle dangle of the p.
For the love of God lose all the dots on that one, looks like it's getting green measles.
Dots are fine when used sparingly.
Everything is too crammed to the edges, leave some breathing room.
It's an improvement but it's still rather ameteurish.
Love....Jill
 

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Marlene

New Member
I don't hate it and I do like how you broke it up with the band and dropped the "L" into it. with that said, the font for Louis' isn't the best choice. the proportion of the lower case to the upper case is off and it creates an odd look where the "L" goes into the rest of the copy. also just because it is a name doesn't mean it has to be a script font. try some others. does it have to be all one color? why not use a dark green for the name, the light for the band or another combo of color. also is this a lighted sign? green on white for a lighted sign is hard to read at night. doing it in reverse like Jill did helps that if you do decide to use a light green. the bullets before and after the days is odd looking too. just the word hours is enough, you don't need the word Daily.
 

John Butto

New Member
Use JillBean's font layout because it is better than yours, and add some either bent metal or pvc for awning look and same for molding so as to match restaurant. It looks like they keep a nice place so you should spruce up there signage accordingly.
 

Gino

Premium Subscriber
Never abbreviate anything. You're supposedly a designer, so design it with full spellings. Abbreviations are for people who don't know how to plan...... look at Jill's, learn a lesson.

Also, a second color will help with your layouts. Whenever you use one basic color throughout anything with a background color [especially white] everything tends to look one dimensional. With this set up..... it's either foreground or background and nothing becomes secondary..... even if you change up the fonts or size. It's sensory overload with everything fighting to be read first. You need to tuck something into the secondary mostly with color.

I also agree in not using a solid border, but an inset stripe.
 

aandrews19

New Member
Thank you to everyone for the suggestions, I appreciate the time taken to offer a little help... with the exception of this post...

A huge improvement. But then a tagger with a blank board and a spray can would be a huge improvement.

Your effort is awful, merely less awful than the original.

Thanks for all the help BOB! :notworthy:
 

Joe Diaz

New Member
If it were our job, we would talk the customer out of the smaller sign with the hours on it and go with just the restaurants name. The majority of successful restaurants don't advertise their hours on their main sign, and there is a reason for that. I'd even drop the "homestyle cooking" or at the very least really downplay that part. This way you have much more room for just the name and less additional content to confuse passers-by. A sign like this isn't a business card or a yellow page ad, it's a "here we are", "this is what we are called" statement, any other information about what type of restaurant this is should be portrayed by style and feel of the design. In other words, for a sign like this, less is more. Perhaps the hours would be better suited on or by the entrance. That is generally where people look for that information anyway. Just my 2 cents.
 

Marlene

New Member
Totally agree about the hours sign. Maybe on the door of the place.​

me too. unless they have hours that will upsell the restaurant like open 24 hrs, then those are pretty expected hours to be open and can just go on a door. I would leave the home style cooking just because when looking for a place to eat, I know I like to know what to expect before going in. just the name alone doesn't help as it could be anything. my hubby and I like to find out of the way places to go out to eat and we do make a choice on the kind of restaurant, the name really not important. as you can see opinions vary. don't knock bob. he may come off sounding pompous but he isn't going to stroke you and tell you nice job when it isn't and his advice is sound
 
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