so yeah, a poll, who wants Zeus back beside the URL instead of that silly graphite 'A'?

ok, this is weird, where'd the poll options go?

Wow. I never noticed the A. I also liked the old logo better. But the new one certainly is better than an "A".

So my vote is yes.

Yes, please.

I still see the little red and white zeus in my URL box, but I vote to keep it the way it is.

Yes! YES! OMGZOMGTUNINGFORK YES!

I'm very earnest about this matter...

I'll add my vote for returning Zeus- the "A" is rather bland, and not fitting at all with the image of ASW. Even if the red version is unsuitable since the main logo was changed, a greyscale version would fit with the new color-scheme, and would probably be accepted by most people.

Edwards

I vote for a grayscale Zeus favicon.

I have to say I'm not very fond of the new Ambrosia logo, but it would be far superior to this generic "A".

For as long as I could remember, since Maelstrom, Ambrosia kept its distinctive logo -- it didn't change arbitrarily; it remained the same. Whenever I loaded up an Ambrosia product, it'd say "hey, we're Ambrosia, your favorite Macintosh game-makers, and through thick and thin, we aren't compromising anything we do; we're going to keep delivering the same excellent software". All in one red-white logo.

The embossed version struck me badly; it's like they changed a working thing for no real reason at all.

But "A"? What kind of an icon is that?

Anyone can have an "A". It compromises everything Ambrosia's done to throw in with the generic letter-icons and have an "A". I mean, look at it; Wikipedia's W is very similar. It could almost be the same font (it's a bit different, but still very much like Ambrosia's A in style).

'kay, I'm being melodramatic.

But I really don't like the new A. Please return the old one -- or if that's impossible, since it would clash with the new logo (which can't be reversed at this point, I assume), please, please, please, pretty please make a small grayscale edition.

- Bob

zeus

I rather like the new logo, and am in favor of the new favicon. Ambrosia has been around for 15 years, and has grown and changed a lot in that time. It has gone from its humble beginnings, selling a few shareware games out of Andrew's dorm room games to a professional operation, with a full-time staff and an actual office. Ambrosia has matured over the last 15 years -- why shouldn't the look and feel of Ambrosia also mature to match?

xander

I'm certainly in favor of keeping the red and white Zeus, but right now it's still displaying as such for me so I'm not going to get so worked up about it.

I don't mind the new "A" at all, but I did like the old Zeus. I add my vote to the greyscale zeus section, for all it's worth.

seeing as how the new favicon is a grey 'A' that suggest that ASW has become a cookie-cutter company, cause that certainly is a cookie-cutter logo. I do not, however, believe ASW to be a cookie-cutter company, hence my objection to the cookie-cutter Favicon

For some reason, I think of Fontbook when I see that A. As a few other people mentioned, the new gray Zeus looks great on business cards, not quite so great on the internet (with our current color scheme), so I too would like the red Zeus. Though it really is Ambrosia's call.

My opine:

The A is too... Ambiguous.

I approve of losing the color red because it's time to move on. But keep Zeus. The greyscale image could be darkened, or change the red to B&W.

Bring back red-and-white zeus. Please. ;_;

Bring back Thor! I mean, Zeus!

Red Zeus, and props for edwin for saying it better than I could.

Bring back Zeus!

Zeus please, red if possible.

Red Zeus for great justice.

I like the A, the red Zeus was always badly defined and difficult to make out unless you knew exactly what it was to begin with. For someone randomly looking at the site, it looked kinda messy, the A is much more professional, plus far more in line with Ambrosia's new symbol.

Plus I'd imagine Andrew likes it, which would be by far the most important thing

The 'A' is nice and simple, I guess my biggest problem is that I just don't associate it specifically with Ambrosia while I did with the (slightly mangled) Zeus favicon. Still, it does look more elegant.

How exactly is a random A more in line with Ambrosia's logo than a smaller version of same logo?

Moreover, is being "professional" even necessarily a good thing?

- Bob

Yeah, that's exactly what I thought of when I first saw it. I think losing the colour in the new logos was a mistake really.

I've still got the Zeus favicon, and hopefully it'll stay that way.

Yeah. Not enough contrast for one.
And also not every company has to be Apple.

I like the new logo, but not the new favicon. My efforts to shrink relief-sculpture Zeus to 16 X 16 all ended in un-evocative blotches.

Anyone else interested in trying their hands at making new candidate favicons? This is the best I can do:

It's the diamond from inside the 'O' (a typographic detail I find much more distinctive than the 'A') placed inside the new pale arch. I tried to make the statuary niche look concave, but I don't really know what I'm doing. Feel free to redo this -- or to put up your own ideas, of course!

Old favicon without a doubt. It had some distinctiveness, some kind of character, something to let you know where you are on the web. A? I mean, come on.

For justice, glory, and everything.

Hmm, maybe because it's the A from the 'Ambrosia' part of the logo. And try shrinking the current logo down to the size it needs to be and ask someone what it's meant to be, it just looks like nothing. From a forum fanboy point of view, wonderful, it's Zeus. However Ambrosia Software is, first and foremost, a business. It's not necessarily a bad thing to have uncomprehensible red blob (or great squiggle as it would be with the new one) but it's certainly not a good one.

Plus presentation is everything, while it's something small it's in line with the rest of Ambrosia's excellent presentation, which is the way it's gotten into the market. You need something that catches your eye or no one would have tried any of these games to begin with.

a graphite ASCII character catches your eye?

Trying to make a grayscale favicon has the same problem that the new logo does: it has no contrast. I tried my best in Photoshop, and it's just not working. This is just the right hand, with the contrast turned up:

I concluded the only way to have Zeus recognizable at 16x16 was to be highly iconic. So I painted the icon pixel by pixel, with a minimalist palette of bold, high-contrast colors:

Or, you could convert that to grayscale:


I like the colored one the best; it does the most with those few pixels.

We could Also try bringing some other mythologiccal symbol that represents zeus, instead of enlarging bits of whats already there.

the A is a sign of a complete lack of imagination, and is completely intolerable.

BRING BACK ZEUS!!!!

This is where I stop:

Click to view attachment

For this one, I removed the wisp of cloud so zeus would stand out more. You could try that on yours, C. Bobs, if you were so inclined.

EDIT: I think "intolerable" is a bit strong for the 'A.' While I'd rather have something else, if the A is what ASW wants, then I certainly will tolerate it!

I'm not going to cast any sort of vote until I see the site after it is redesigned completely. I would, however, like to see something like this:



(I'm kinda biased though.)

I vote red and white Zeus as well as some sort of Zeus favicon.

I've got a Greasemonkey script that may replace the favicon back to where it was on Firefox (can't tell because I don't have Firefox and I'm not going to download it just to test).
It won't work on Safari though, because of the way Safari handles favicons.
http://xenosgame.com/staff/rickton/redzeus.user.js

Hmm, why kill the Zeus icon when we're still in pinstripe land? That background makes me think of a circus every time I see it.

Without wanting to insult you, but I don't think that these designs would be that good as a site favicon, because the used Zeus is too small to be recognised correctly; especially by a non-Ambrosia familiar visitor.

Though, the idea of a new symbol which stands for Zeus or just ASW is good. That's more unique than a simple "A" and still not too complicated to understand.

I know!

For those who have EVN, look at the Auroran status bar. Red lightning.
Well, that kind of lightning, but used to make an A

(I actually used that kind of an idea for the Arpia novels and the equivalent of the Aurorans)

'kay, made a quick try at it.



You get the idea.

I agree. Bring Zeus back. Please

I would like the new grayscale logo if it was darker, sorta like the "Ambrosia" lettering below it.

I too would definately like a Zeus favicon.

That doesn't show up for me when I come here. I just see the old internet explorer icon. The Zeus, either form, while being cooler looking, is really hard to see in that small bar, where as an A is more visible. The old Zeus icon symbolized Ambrosia for my entire life and I'm hating to see it changed. I don't like the white one. When I downloaded JTH's plug putting the white one in in the icon for Nova, I deleted it instantely. I couldn't see it. It looked like a white rectangle. However, in Yoda's Lest We Forget topic, someone (I forgot who) made one of the white ones that I think looked really cool, since it wsa sorta 3Dish, and it was a little darker, and easy to see. That's my favorite out of all the ones I've seen so far. I'd like that one as the icon or the red and white Zeus. Not the plain one they have now. I can't even see it up next the the tool bar with all the little tabs, like New, Store and stuff.

Did anyone else notice that the old logo is still used on the Dragster advertisement?

On the AKJ Mahjong advertisement as well.

EDIT: Oops. Rather unnecessary post. Thought this topic was in the B&B, not sitting right next to the one andrew posted in, right here in Ambrosia Banter. Apologies.

Actually, it seems they just havn't updated any of the banners that were made before the logo changed.

Thank you for the concerns, ideas and posts regarding our new logo and favicon. I do respect everyones input and take all of it into consideration.

We're in the middle of transitioning our identity. It will take some time to get everything moved over to the new look. It can't happen all at once.

Our re-branding is indicative of our new direction, out with the old, in with the new. Red is longer part of the company color.

I know change is not easy for some, but for Ambrosia the time was ripe for it.