More Marquee Thoughts

Check it out... someone over at BYOAC took a stab at the artwork for me and came up with this:

Now I think we are getting somewhere! I really like it but I had a few comments:

• I'd like the black lines around the dial to be a bit thicker
  
• I'm not sure how I feel about the yellow border on the dial
  
• I think I want to see the background in a color other than brown
  
• I might want to change the font on the numbers a bit (maybe make them bold?)
  
• The dial looks a little big - maybe shrink it by 1/2" all the way around?
  
• I want to add a personal touch like "Mfg. by 'my name' 2008" or soemthing like I previously mentioned

So he came up with this:

After seeing this version, I had a couple of comments:

• After seeing the "bold" I think I might like the non-bold version better (but still the smaller dial).
  
• I think you can remove the "Mfg. by" font in the middle - it doesn't look quite right.
  
• Is there a way to remove the yellow line that separates the background with the dial?
  
• Is there a way to use the colors from your first design (the yellow on brown) and the black and gray for the background like in the second design? I like the yellow/orange sunburst look like in the original photo.

So then he came up with this:

Now I'm torn. I'm really close to settling on a "final" design but I don't know if this is lacking something...

• I still might not like the bold lines and font
• I might want the yellow a tad brighter

I'm also thinking about making a vector out of the entire thing since the background gets a bit pixelated when you blow it up to the actual size I need. These are some examples of what the vectorized file looks like:

This is great work!!