Re: Primary colours of LyX? Was: Website re-design ideas
On Mar 29, 2008, at 2:17 PM, AK wrote: John wrote: On Saturday 29 March 2008 04:20:21 am AK wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mon, 24 Mar 2008, Joost Verburg wrote: Logo & graphical profile Any company needs a logo and preferably a graphical profile to make themselves known to their customers. Think of the big companies, think of IBM: stripy and blue, McDonalds: M and yellow. They are graphical profiles that helps give them an image that sticks in customers minds. Not only do they help the business stand out, but it also creates a reputation. IBM's logo gives a very traditional feel, serene and solid. It represents something you can rely on in the marketplace. While the McDonalds logo is dynamic and fun, inviting you to a feel-good experience. A graphical profile spans logo, colours, business cards, stationeries, and a range of supplies for commercial purposes. People will remember the Platypus, though, but we already have that. I've used LyX from the beginning - and love it! But in all the time that the logo has been there it never occurred to me that it was a platypus, despite being familiar with the O'Reilly like platypus associated with the original example document. While I would much prefer that the developers worry about improving and debugging an already superb product rather than fuss over the logo, if you must tinker with the logo, please make it resemble a platypus! Probably just changing the beak shape, and toning down those awful cartoon colours would be enough. John O'Gorman I agree that it doesn't look much like platypus - I did not think it was one before being told, I just meant that whatever it is, people will remember it as being connected to LyX. I will see if I can make it more platypus-like without upsetting people who are used to it as it is. But it's hard to make it look like platypus because it's never pictured sitting like that - it probably never sits, either. Even if you propped up a real platypus to sit up like that and made a picture, it'd likely be hard to tell for an average person that it's indeed a platypus. But, anyway, we'll see what we can do. -ak So, to sum up, we should have a color scheme that will be shared between site template and splash screen, and probably use a standard font face like Verdana or something similar for now, and have the Platypus as the main recognizable identifier of all things LyX. -andrei The platypus is already being used by some other projects, though. For example, on the Mac, Platypus is a script wrapper application: http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/12046 I like the LyX creature the way it is, and it clearly isn't a platypus. Moreover, it's just as recognizable as the McDonald's clown, and much less freaky. Jens
Re: Primary colours of LyX? Was: Website re-design ideas
John wrote: On Saturday 29 March 2008 04:20:21 am AK wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mon, 24 Mar 2008, Joost Verburg wrote: Logo & graphical profile Any company needs a logo and preferably a graphical profile to make themselves known to their customers. Think of the big companies, think of IBM: stripy and blue, McDonalds: M and yellow. They are graphical profiles that helps give them an image that sticks in customers minds. Not only do they help the business stand out, but it also creates a reputation. IBM's logo gives a very traditional feel, serene and solid. It represents something you can rely on in the marketplace. While the McDonalds logo is dynamic and fun, inviting you to a feel-good experience. A graphical profile spans logo, colours, business cards, stationeries, and a range of supplies for commercial purposes. People will remember the Platypus, though, but we already have that. I've used LyX from the beginning - and love it! But in all the time that the logo has been there it never occurred to me that it was a platypus, despite being familiar with the O'Reilly like platypus associated with the original example document. While I would much prefer that the developers worry about improving and debugging an already superb product rather than fuss over the logo, if you must tinker with the logo, please make it resemble a platypus! Probably just changing the beak shape, and toning down those awful cartoon colours would be enough. John O'Gorman I agree that it doesn't look much like platypus - I did not think it was one before being told, I just meant that whatever it is, people will remember it as being connected to LyX. I will see if I can make it more platypus-like without upsetting people who are used to it as it is. But it's hard to make it look like platypus because it's never pictured sitting like that - it probably never sits, either. Even if you propped up a real platypus to sit up like that and made a picture, it'd likely be hard to tell for an average person that it's indeed a platypus. But, anyway, we'll see what we can do. -ak So, to sum up, we should have a color scheme that will be shared between site template and splash screen, and probably use a standard font face like Verdana or something similar for now, and have the Platypus as the main recognizable identifier of all things LyX. -andrei -- -ak Tobu | http://www.lightbird.net/tobu/ | Freeform DB / Tagger / PIM
Re: Primary colours of LyX? Was: Website re-design ideas
On Fri, 28 Mar 2008, AK wrote: A graphical profile spans logo, colours, business cards, stationeries, and a range of supplies for commercial purposes. Mostly, for the project like LyX, I believe that graphical profile should be just a palette of colors and the logo. Ok. The only additional thing we could do is a custom 'mathy' font face, incorporating some characters used in math formulas, ... I don't think that's necessary... In case of a company like IBM... You certainly seems to know this stuff! :-) For LyX, I would say, it's more important to have a logo and template that look nice and pleasing to the eye. Ok, agreed. There will probably be many other sites that use similar color scheme, unless we do bright yellow on orange design, which is bad for other reasons. So, a casual user or someone entirely new won't think 'of course that's LyX color profile', but instead will think 'this design is nice' or 'this design isn't very nice' where the first reaction is preferable. Sounds good. People will remember the Platypus, though, but we already have that. So, to sum up, we should have a color scheme that will be shared between site template and splash screen, and probably use a standard font face like Verdana or something similar for now, and have the Platypus as the main recognizable identifier of all things LyX. -andrei Great, sounds like a plan :-) I wrote down your thoughts here: http://www.lyx.org/~chr/www/index.php/Main/GraphicalProfile Whatever we agree on, we need to document it somewhere. Hmm... maybe I should have used the wiki instead. /Christian -- Christian Ridderström, +46-8-768 39 44 http://www.md.kth.se/~chr
Re: Primary colours of LyX? Was: Website re-design ideas
On Saturday 29 March 2008 04:20:21 am AK wrote: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > On Mon, 24 Mar 2008, Joost Verburg wrote: > > Logo & graphical profile > > > > Any company needs a logo and preferably a graphical profile to make > > themselves known to their customers. > > > > Think of the big companies, think of IBM: stripy and blue, McDonalds: > > M and yellow. They are graphical profiles that helps give them an > > image that sticks in customers minds. Not only do they help the > > business stand out, but it also creates a reputation. IBM's logo gives > > a very traditional feel, serene and solid. It represents something you > > can rely on in the marketplace. While the McDonalds logo is dynamic > > and fun, inviting you to a feel-good experience. > > > > A graphical profile spans logo, colours, business cards, stationeries, > > and a range of supplies for commercial purposes. > > People will > remember the Platypus, though, but we already have that. I've used LyX from the beginning - and love it! But in all the time that the logo has been there it never occurred to me that it was a platypus, despite being familiar with the O'Reilly like platypus associated with the original example document. While I would much prefer that the developers worry about improving and debugging an already superb product rather than fuss over the logo, if you must tinker with the logo, please make it resemble a platypus! Probably just changing the beak shape, and toning down those awful cartoon colours would be enough. John O'Gorman > So, to sum up, > we should have a color scheme that will be shared between site template > and splash screen, and probably use a standard font face like Verdana or > something similar for now, and have the Platypus as the main > recognizable identifier of all things LyX. -andrei
Re: Primary colours of LyX? Was: Website re-design ideas
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mon, 24 Mar 2008, Joost Verburg wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Do "LyX" have some sort of "primary" colours? Or some kind of colour theme? My company spent money on letting a designer come up with a colour set, where we should try and use a certain combo of colours... Do we have something like that? In my opinion a color set should be a part of the new design. Ok, but less easy... now I remember what it was called, she referred to it as the 'graphial profile'. It involved more than just colours, also what fonts we should use etc. Anyway, the designer we used apparantly spent quite a bit of time thinking this through somehow.. I just wonder if we'll be able to come up with something useful. But maybe this is were Andrei's expertise comes into play? According to my gf it's non trival, and apparantly related to "branding"... and we should start with what LyX represents, and what its core values are how are we different from the competition... sigh, can't we just do development? ;-) Actually, it's probably a good idea to see what kind of graphial profiles OO, MS Word, Abi Word and LaTeX have? /Christian PS. I tried finding some kind of explanation of what a graphical profile is... this sounds like the thing I meant. From http://moonmanstudio.com/graphicalprofile.php Logo & graphical profile Any company needs a logo and preferably a graphical profile to make themselves known to their customers. Think of the big companies, think of IBM: stripy and blue, McDonalds: M and yellow. They are graphical profiles that helps give them an image that sticks in customers minds. Not only do they help the business stand out, but it also creates a reputation. IBM's logo gives a very traditional feel, serene and solid. It represents something you can rely on in the marketplace. While the McDonalds logo is dynamic and fun, inviting you to a feel-good experience. A graphical profile spans logo, colours, business cards, stationeries, and a range of supplies for commercial purposes. Mostly, for the project like LyX, I believe that graphical profile should be just a palette of colors and the logo. The only additional thing we could do is a custom 'mathy' font face, incorporating some characters used in math formulas, but that'd take more time than I have at the moment to spend on this, I would say that this could take quite a bit of effort to do well. In case of a company like IBM, the same color scheme and custom fonts are used for print ads, booklets, letter forms, tv ads, billboards, splash screen in programs, website, intranet, signs in front of buildings, space design on trade shows and I'm probably forgetting many things here. Note that the UI of programs made by IBM will use native colors of the platform, for the most part. For them, maintaining the same graphical profile is more important, firstly, because use in each instance will reinforce impact of the design in all other instances, and secondly, because they can manage enough advertising saturation that the design is imprinted in visual memory and is not seen as 'blue logo design with stripes' but immediately as 'ibm design'. For LyX, I would say, it's more important to have a logo and template that look nice and pleasing to the eye. There will probably be many other sites that use similar color scheme, unless we do bright yellow on orange design, which is bad for other reasons. So, a casual user or someone entirely new won't think 'of course that's LyX color profile', but instead will think 'this design is nice' or 'this design isn't very nice' where the first reaction is preferable. People will remember the Platypus, though, but we already have that. So, to sum up, we should have a color scheme that will be shared between site template and splash screen, and probably use a standard font face like Verdana or something similar for now, and have the Platypus as the main recognizable identifier of all things LyX. -andrei -- -ak Tobu | http://www.lightbird.net/tobu/ | Freeform DB / Tagger / PIM
Re: Primary colours of LyX? Was: Website re-design ideas
On Wednesday 26 March 2008 10:46:10 am rgheck wrote: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > On Mon, 24 Mar 2008, Joost Verburg wrote: > > I think I'll just do development and leave this issue to you guys. ;-) Yes! Let's enjoy the substance of LyX. We can leave the shadow to OO, MS Office, and the others John O'Gorman > > rh
Re: Primary colours of LyX? Was: Website re-design ideas
Great idea, Christian. I wouldn't have thought of creating a "graphical profile", but it makes total sense. Hopefully Andrei (AK) will have something to say on this topic. Rex >> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > >>> Do "LyX" have some sort of "primary" colours? Or some kind of colour > >>> theme? My company spent money on letting a designer come up with a > >>> colour > >>> set, where we should try and use a certain combo of colours... Do > >>> we have > >>> something like that? > >> > >> In my opinion a color set should be a part of the new design. > > > > Ok, but less easy... now I remember what it was called, she referred > > to it as the 'graphial profile'. It involved more than just colours, > > also what fonts we should use etc. Anyway, the designer we used > > apparantly spent quite a bit of time thinking this through somehow.. I > > just wonder if we'll be able to come up with something useful. But > > maybe this is were Andrei's expertise comes into play? > > > > According to my gf it's non trival, and apparantly related to > > "branding"... and we should start with what LyX represents, and what > > its core values are how are we different from the competition... > > sigh, can't we just do development? ;-) > > > >
Re: Primary colours of LyX? Was: Website re-design ideas
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mon, 24 Mar 2008, Joost Verburg wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Do "LyX" have some sort of "primary" colours? Or some kind of colour theme? My company spent money on letting a designer come up with a colour set, where we should try and use a certain combo of colours... Do we have something like that? In my opinion a color set should be a part of the new design. Ok, but less easy... now I remember what it was called, she referred to it as the 'graphial profile'. It involved more than just colours, also what fonts we should use etc. Anyway, the designer we used apparantly spent quite a bit of time thinking this through somehow.. I just wonder if we'll be able to come up with something useful. But maybe this is were Andrei's expertise comes into play? According to my gf it's non trival, and apparantly related to "branding"... and we should start with what LyX represents, and what its core values are how are we different from the competition... sigh, can't we just do development? ;-) I think I'll just do development and leave this issue to you guys. ;-) rh
Re: Primary colours of LyX? Was: Website re-design ideas
On Mon, 24 Mar 2008, Joost Verburg wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Do "LyX" have some sort of "primary" colours? Or some kind of colour theme? My company spent money on letting a designer come up with a colour set, where we should try and use a certain combo of colours... Do we have something like that? In my opinion a color set should be a part of the new design. Ok, but less easy... now I remember what it was called, she referred to it as the 'graphial profile'. It involved more than just colours, also what fonts we should use etc. Anyway, the designer we used apparantly spent quite a bit of time thinking this through somehow.. I just wonder if we'll be able to come up with something useful. But maybe this is were Andrei's expertise comes into play? According to my gf it's non trival, and apparantly related to "branding"... and we should start with what LyX represents, and what its core values are how are we different from the competition... sigh, can't we just do development? ;-) Actually, it's probably a good idea to see what kind of graphial profiles OO, MS Word, Abi Word and LaTeX have? /Christian PS. I tried finding some kind of explanation of what a graphical profile is... this sounds like the thing I meant. From http://moonmanstudio.com/graphicalprofile.php Logo & graphical profile Any company needs a logo and preferably a graphical profile to make themselves known to their customers. Think of the big companies, think of IBM: stripy and blue, McDonalds: M and yellow. They are graphical profiles that helps give them an image that sticks in customers minds. Not only do they help the business stand out, but it also creates a reputation. IBM's logo gives a very traditional feel, serene and solid. It represents something you can rely on in the marketplace. While the McDonalds logo is dynamic and fun, inviting you to a feel-good experience. A graphical profile spans logo, colours, business cards, stationeries, and a range of supplies for commercial purposes. -- Christian Ridderström, +46-8-768 39 44 http://www.md.kth.se/~chr
Re: Primary colours of LyX? Was: Website re-design ideas
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Do "LyX" have some sort of "primary" colours? Or some kind of colour theme? My company spent money on letting a designer come up with a colour set, where we should try and use a certain combo of colours... Do we have something like that? In my opinion a color set should be a part of the new design. Joost
