Hi Tobias,
Your comments were addressed to Bernhard, but you mentioned my proposal
so I hope you don't mind me interjecting here?
Forewarning: My Emails are long. I rant. I'm sorry. Really! =(
On 5/27/2011 3:32 AM, Tobias Bernard wrote:
I like the way you reused the triangle for the "A" - and the rest of the
line fits very well with the triangle due to the special font you used.
Together with the large triangle at the upper right and the tight
connection among the lines of text it provides an impression of compact
power and strength.
I like this kind of logos - but what they convey is different from the
feeling I get when looking at the LibreOffice logo and branding.
For me LibreOffice is light and open. It wants to be inclusive and
really "libre". I don't know if you understand what I mean.
sorry, but not really :)
i guess "light" means "big spacee between objects" and maybe "light
backgrounds" or "thin fonts", but i don't really understand what you
mean with "inclusive and really libre".
I can understand your stance too, because having a "Design language /
Visual culture" described in words is rarely effective.
People (aka: us) will use words like "open" and "libre" which are more
/concepts/ than /physical attributes/.
That leaves things up to interpretation, and as a result of that,
misinterpretation.
Usually you can look over the existing material to understand a visual
culture, but sadly we don't have much of that.
So I guess right now we all have an idea of how the brand will manifest,
but because we all have different tastes,
the idea will vary from person to person. Obviously for a brand, that is
counter-productive. A single vision is required.
It took some time, but we reached a vision and have been rolling with it
unenunciated. More on that in a sec...
I don't have a solution really, I'm just whistling-dixie and hoping
/you/ understand that /I/ understand our dilemma.
But I've been meaning to clarify our "Design language" for quite some
time so everyone can see, via example, what we said we were aiming for.
This is even more important now that we have so many new members. I will
make time for that soon! I promise.
(Bernhard: what I envisage for this is a book/pdf, explaining our
Design-approach, values and aesthetic. Will that work?)
I can understand your qualms because I went through it for
OpenOffice.org where I struggled, for what seemed like years, to
understand their visual culture.
And it took along time before I got it. That could have been eased by
some sort of "style guide" (which is what I propose).
But in the mean time, I can only use words to describe what I mean, but
I find it helpful to look at it this way;
We agreed some time ago that we wanted to cast off the "shiny,
artificial, techy look" in favour of something more honest and friendly;
PAPER gave us the "feeling" we wanted to convey, it is natural/organic,
simple and friendly.
It has warmth:texture/earthly feel
It is welcoming:open space
It has possibilities/promise:empty contents, room to create
It is familiar:affordable/non-discriminant of wealth
It is part of the world:sustainable/organic
Our branding - the logo with bold green and regular grey letters, the
document symbol and icons with rounded corners and small borders as well
as the Scatter motif - creates a certain branding language. I'd like to
see this language and the "look-and-feel" it provides be consistent
among all the official design being used to represent LibreOffice.
Even if you used the colors and the font of our branding, your design
doesn't match exactly what I think is important to keep our design
consistent.
what i don't understand too, is why other proposals for this logo fit
the branding better, e.g. nik's proposal doesn't use the same colors the
logo uses, and also a different font.
You're quite right here =S, I used a different typeface than our
LogoType (even the name of which escapes me at the moment).
I see too many deficiencies in that typeface to use it for body text. Or
promotional material.
I think using it because it is open-source is too much of a compromise
to the visual quality of our work.
I found another public-domain free-for-distribution typeface to use for
my Design.
The difference between the typefaces we chose was that my typeface is a
simple sans-serif typeface with no exceptional character other than
refined geometric shape.
Your typeface choice has a very strong character, and while it looks
GREAT, it suggests techy-savvy-futuristic-stylistic.
Using it would fundamentally shift the way we look to the public, geeks
might love it, moms might hate it, CEOs might dismiss it, Linotype might
buy it!
I think we should aim for something neutral rather than something cool.
That cool thing might age faster than expensive cheese and leave us with
dated looking collateral, and a bad smell. =) ... =(
So while I like the typeface you used, I don't think it fits well with
the non-techy look we're going for.
That isn't a criticism, it's just clarification and I hope it was
helpful. ? =)
I've been meaning to raise the issue of Type for ages but it never looks
like a good time.
But that time is coming soon. Stay tuned. I believe a thread occurred
not too long ago about this that I couldn't join at the time =(
concerning the eiffel tower, i think it is really overused. EVERYTIME
something takes place in paris or even in france, you can be sure there
will be he eiffel tower somewhere.
i would like to go for something new instead, such as the libo triangle
in the word "paris" or another idea.
Yeah I know it's predictable, =)
But I think it's used because it easily communicates the location at a
glance to everyone.
It's iconic. It doesn't matter that we are tired of it, it matters
whether it is clear.
I smile a smile so wide it could open portals whenever I see the Sydney
Opera House on overseas materials, maybe that's just me =)
it could be an idea for future conferences to always use the triangle
instead of one letter.
generally, i would use that triangle more often in libreoffce-designs.
the motif was a good start, but this would be a great occasion to
establish it even more.
another thing i think is important is that we have one general logo for
conferences ("libreoffice conference") and then a "localized" part of
logo ("paris 2011") that changes for every conference.
Totally agree with you amigo!
tobias
I genuinely hope I came off sounding helpful rather than smug above,
because I really want to clarify this so we can all be on the same page.
It wasn't so much of an issue before because all the people that
participated in the early discussions were doing most of the work ('twas
a small team). But many poeple have joined since and we haven't got
anything ready to give everyone new a run-down on what we discussed. I
anticipated that we hadn't done a good enough job articulating what the
LibO "style" was and that it would bite us in the posterior. But that is
largely a result of lack-of-time rather than lack-of-care!
A solution, (pending both approval and demand), is coming!
... If I WASN'T helpful, well, just delete this and pretend I didn't say
squat! =)
-Nik
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