Hello Bernhard, everyone, On Fri, Jan 15, 2010 at 5:09 PM, Bernhard Dippold < bernh...@familie-dippold.at> wrote:
> Hi Brian, all, > > I'm back again from Hamburg, but will post about the meeting tomorrow... > Hope you had an excellent and productive trip :) > > For now just a few remarks regarding your new web buttons, Brian: > > Brian Coale schrieb: > >> [...] I posted some new "Glass" web buttons here: >> >> >> http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Art/Gallery/WebButtons#Brian_Coale >> > > for anyone who wanted a nice fancy button on their site showing > >> their support for OpenOffice.org. >> > > The buttons really look fancy and glassy, but you already mentioned: > >> >> [...] they don't follow the standard design and colors of much of the >> marketing material, >> > > You know that we try to strengthen the visual impression of OpenOffice.org > by reproducing the same look and feel in every representation of our product > and our project. Even if your buttons look good, they don't provide the > positive recognition of the product - mainly because of the colors differing > quite a lot from the blue tone of our logo or the application colors from > the icons. This is a very good point, and I have addressed this issue by re-releasing the "glass" set using only official colors. There are less of them now, but sometimes less is more. > > > but what I've noticed is that many, many web buttons out there (for >> many different products) only loosely follow branding guidelines. >> > > You are totally right, most of our web buttons don't respect the idea of a > unique OOo branding - they are quite old, but we didn't have newer ones. But > this doesn't mean that we don't want to have a strong branding and a good > recognition by our users. > > I added the standard information about official and additional galleries to > the wiki page, but even if the "official" buttons are very much outdated, > I'm thinking about adding another, more stronger suggestion to use the > official ones to the page. > > As it will hopefully not take too much time to come to a consistent > branding for OOo, I don't want new "official" buttons to be created now - we > need to define the style before. I understand your concern here, but standing by and waiting for a new direction to go is no way to come up with fresh ideas. As artists we should always create, even when the creating is futile and frivolous; and although it might be decided tomorrow the the logo is to be completely changed and the new official color is red, I would not regret creating these unofficial and unsupported tidbits in the meantime as a way to throw around my ideas. > > > However, the OOo logo is unaltered >> > > The smallest logo doesn't contain the gulls - without them the logo is > modified in a way the trademark holder doesn't want to see in public > (neither do I ;-) ) If this is the case, I would suggest that no web buttons smaller than 88x31 pixels be made. As it is, in my opinion, not possible to fit the logo, with the gulls placed just as they are, in a button only 15 pixels tall and have it still be legible. I've already omitted mine. > > > except for being reverse-type, >> which is typical usage for logos shown over dark backgrounds. >> > > White logos are possible on dark monochrome background, for colored > background the colored logos (on dark: white&blue) should be used. I can > hardly read your logos, I'm quite sure that this is caused by the small > difference in brightness between the logo colors and the text. The problem here is if the background color is the official blue, and the text on the logo is official blue, what do you have? Nonetheless, after some thought about your email, I went about lightening the background with a gradient using only official blue and white, and used the original logo colors. I think it actually came out quite nice. > > > Also >> I've used slogans I've seen on other marketing materials I've seen >> around the project. Whether or not these are official slogans, I >> don't know. >> > > The present official slogan is "Open. For Business", but it has been > established in 2006 IIRC. Other slogans are even older, so we need to define > a slogan fitting with our new position in market, our anniversary and other > parts of the main marketing strategy. It's a pity that neither this strategy > nor a resulting slogan has been considered on the general marketing mailing > list d...@marketing.openoffice.org. But the active people in the marketing > project don't have had the time to do so... Yes, it really wasn't very clear what, if any, official slogan was being used. I went ahead and used the one you suggested. It's a good one. Thanks for putting me straight on that. > > >> I've offered them in dark gray and blue, other colors are available >> upon request. >> > > The only color that might fit with our goals could be the dark blue (RGB > 6,52,140) from our logo. Right, then I revoke the offer. > > >> Let me know what you think, comments, criticism and faint praise are >> welcomed! >> > > Sorry for not being totally positive, but I'm driven by the thought of a > general branding effort. When we come to a decision about the branding > project, there will be a lot to do in order to define and establish the > artwork we want to be supported. > No apologies are necessary, this is exactly the kind of constructive criticisms that help decent designs become great ones. If everyone just tells me how great I am all the time, then there's no room for improvement then, is there? I hope the new revisions will better serve the strength of the product, it's branding and overall image, and if not, then we move on. Unlike many designers, I embrace the commerciality of my designs, and therefor take tough criticism less personal than some "artists". ;) That doesn't mean I don't misstep or don't fall into the trap of frivolous expression at times. Often I use it as a means to convey ideas more than serious proposals, which often are derived from those ideas. Thank you for your time and your thoughts, they are both appreciated. > > Please join this effort too! > I rather thought I had? I will do what I can. :) > > Best regards > > Bernhard > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: art-unsubscr...@marketing.openoffice.org > For additional commands, e-mail: art-h...@marketing.openoffice.org > > -Brian
