I would like to ask everyone to also register at
ducpay.com. This is a Bitcoin forum and there are many different Ducats communities at the moment. Hopefully we can unite them all at a single place.
About the logo, I have saved it but would like a few more suggestions before making a final choice.
I'll shoehorn this in here, shoulda been a response to Shadow_Runner's post:
What do you think about this simple version?
I'm not sure about more details or elements. IMHO coin must look simple and clear.
A solid start (your posting history is a credit to your dedication and talent).
A skeumorphic approach using a realistic-looking coin is the obvious door #1 for the start of any design investigation ... but as you note:
coin must look simple and clear
To do that I think you must move away from the realism, losing the detail (which would inevitably be indistinct at typical icon sizes) and working more towards a symbol-like approach (at least purely to have an alternative, something to contrast with the skeumorphic approach). I know it's a tough task but the end result could be worth it.
To have the kind of impact that's expected from a logo/icon/symbol (it plays all three roles) the visual appearance should aim to be distinct from the bulk of the 1001 other wannabe altlitebitcoins, be implemented in svg and should be recognisable even when condensed into a favicon.
I don't know about the ru edition but the en.wikipedia entry
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ducat offers some stimulating background context for feeding the design muse, e.g. "a gold or silver coin used as a **trade coin** in Europe from the later medieval centuries until as late as the 20th century."
It occurs to me that a skeumorphic approach has one inarguable advantage -- it directly renders the item, there's no symbol processing required. This might confer a cross-cultural advantage, free of linguistic concerns.
If you pursue the realistic strand further, there may be some mileage in browsing the designs created by some of the modern mints, e.g.
http://www.muenzeoesterreich.at/
