I just talked to a few full time designers at IBM I ran into while at lunch and showed them the proposals so far just as a "what do you think?"
Just saying this now, my design got slammed, after they told me tips and feedback I was convinced it was bad, even though I thought very highly of it 10 mins prior. I think I want to pull it out at this point, but we'll leave it up as what not to do... I would recommend anyone here to reach out to designers they know and ask them for feedback on the proposal pages, ideas they have. The more knowledge and feedback we collect the better we are going into this. I can summarize their feedback and some helpful points. We don't have to do any changes we don't feel are right, but it could only help us to hear this. No particular order, I wrote down points, just writing them out detailed now. 1. It has to be reproducible. Chris R's is a great example, very simple logo. Both logo's with feathers would be a nightmare to reproduce. Suggested not to be part of the logo, but it can be part of a website design or splash screen, refresh/changes with versions. 2. It does not need to be part of the icons. Bonus points if you can make them related though. Tips for icons - Can't go solely on colours for distinguishing modules. - Primary detail (Table, Sigma, Database, Text Lines, etc.) should be fairly large and pronounced as the main idea being communicated to the user visually in the icon. - Secondary detail - (brand) smaller, eg. single small bird in corner to tie it to the brand, again optional and remove for simplicity. - Do not user language characters, as it does not internationalize well, ie C for calc, M for math. Criticism seen in Adobe products (they get away with it). Sigma is fine, as its internationally known. 3. Font What's in is thin, sleek fonts. ie. my font choice looks like I'm stuck in the 90s, very techy looking. Who are we appealing to? End users, everyday folk, they like sleek. 4. Don't constrain ourselves to rounded square - We seem to be trying to fit a predefined container. Same with trying to integrate the colours. We're trying too hard. Keep it simple and original. Don't have the gulls hanging in mid air. "Ground them" Michael's #8 where the wings touch the circle is a good example of how to do that. They are part of it. I'm going to go home and make a new proposal that will highlight this feedback, soon hopefully. Just to show the ideas in an example. I will quantify some of these as possible requirements so that we have something to aim for. Samer On Feb 5, 2013 4:41 AM, "Jürgen Schmidt" <[email protected]> wrote: > On 2/5/13 7:31 AM, Samer Mansour wrote: > > Picking a logo, hmmm. > > > > First part is dates. > > We could find our dates by working backwards: > > 1. When is the estimated release date of AOO4? > > we currently focus on April/May but no exact dates planned yet because > we have still many things to do. I expect a more detailed schedule later > this month. > > > 2. When do we need to have a logo picked (consider time to integrate). > I would say we should focus on end of February. Keep in mind that we > need final design work after we picked a proposal, need icons, app logo, > banner logo etc. > > > 3. When do we need to start a final vote. > aligned with 2. > > > 4. If/When do we need a preliminary/elimination vote. > not sure if this is needed at all > > > 5. When is proposal deadline. > > Consider how much time for each of the above steps, advertise the > schedule > > so that everyone voting knows when voting will occur and won't miss it. > > > > Second part is voting: > > How do we pick a logo by voting: > > - We could do rounds of elimination voting. Like American Idol, the > > weakest X number of logo gets eliminated. You can then vote again on > the > > next round for a logo that survived if your first logo pick did not. > > - Who gets to vote? Help me on this one, I'm newb, is it all the mailing > > lists? Dev list, etc. one person a vote. > > good question, we can run of course several rounds but I wouldn't do too > many. But I am flexible > > > > > Third part is criteria: > > - What are the minimum criteria for the logo. > > - What are the constraints of the logo, if any, ie. technical. > at least free and proper licensed font > > I personally would keep the blue as our preferred color to demonstrate > continuity. > > We should keep in mind that a logo that can be used for different > merchandising material has some advantages. > > > > > From the sounds of it, we were not proposing finished work at this point > in > > time. Still a lot of bouncing ideas, I do feel like our designs are > > beginning to conform to a higher than all of us design from our > feedbacks. > > Maybe voting will be easy, who knows. I'm optimistic here. > > In general I would recommend to select one of the proposals until end of > February and target the final bits until end of March. Integration > should take not too long and we can test it afterwards in detail. > > > > > Feedback is welcome, specially in areas like voting. We can start > > populating this, such as dates. > > thanks for driving this forward. A new fresh design with keeping some of > the former elements or colors is a good move. We don't need a radical > new design, a refresh is perfect form my point of view. > > Juergen > > > > > Samer > > > > On Feb 4, 2013 6:11 AM, "Jürgen Schmidt" <[email protected]> wrote: > >> > >> On 2/1/13 6:03 PM, Kadal Amutham wrote: > >>> I have edited the wiki , giving numbers to all the logos. So all of us > > can > >>> have a look and vote as follows giving the ranking. Kinldy use > alphabets > >>> for ranking meaning A as the best, B next one and Z the last. > >> > >> before we start voting on the logos I would suggest that we define some > >> basic rules and a timeline (when to start, how long the vote is open > >> etc.). We have some very interesting and good proposals but in the end > >> only one can make it. We should also consider a complete brand, means a > >> proposal that can be applied everywhere (logo, file icons and app icon, > >> webpage, intro, about, ...) > >> > >> Just my opinion > >> > >> Juergen > > > >
