I like the top gradient an awful lot, because it seems to me like a representation of a skyline, and I like the depth the "Illinois Valley" seems to have against it. I also like the tree concept, maybe a few smaller trees too, but only if they don't make it too busy, that's artist's interpretation I think. I wonder about the gradient used on "Daily View", but I don't know why, possibly makes "Daily View" blend in too much in some ways? I really like the font used for "Daily View" though, it's clean and bold, and slightly progressive.
Hi, Thanks for your detailed feedback. I took an inspiration from the real photo of your valley I found when googling. I made slopes a bit sharper than real to give it symbolic "bold but honest" look. I love open space and think this is the best thing you got over there (sorry for that...). As for the font gradient I just tried to match "not ashamed of technology" factor. This kind of gradient can leave some impression like that - at least it looks this way to me.
Tomorrow I will take fresh look at all this and try to come up with some variations taking into consideration your suggestions.
Here are new versions. I've populated slopes with more trees (starting from two) but I'm still attracted most to my first choice with lonely proud spruce. Also colors of my first choice are taken from your web page and, interestingly, I find them the best (hating even a thought of making trees green).
The orange is pretty strong, I'm going to see if I can find a background example that may be useful, maybe tomorrow, I have to search the archives. You may search images.google.com for Illinois Valley in Oregon