to quote my response from the wiki due to lack of time (sorry if it gets partly OT here):
---<snip>--- While the mask may sure look stylish (though i associate e.g. not only african tribalism but also a christian bishop with mitre) it still lacks several qualities that are needed in a good sign to use in an identity. Especially one of a mass product like Ubuntu which needs to be able to be communicated to an extremely heterogenous public in respect to cultural background, education, age, etc. This requires amongst others extreme simplicity, universality (e.g. across cultures!), recognisability, scalability & cross-media fitness (from screen over small b/w fax header to large colour poster etc.) and *still* needs to communicate something particular important about the project. Unfortunately this normally leads to rather restrictive requirements which might result in something which could be considered a little bit more 'boring' than something which can be executed within a more focused frame. Consequently, I consider the current sign to be rather succesful at the given task and highly professional work (the idea of togetherness seems very well abstracted) which is anything but easy to top. Even as someone who has done identity work for some rather succesful and well-sustained larger projects i currently wouldn't dare to significantly touch it - lest replace it. Adding a kind of mascot is another kind of story, though this should ideally be also directly identifyable as an offspring of the current identity. Still, before that one should IMHO think about possibilities to re-use the current logo (or parts of it) for such purposes. Maybe it can be made to 'come alive', somehow? SaschaBrossmann 2005-12-24 02:29:04 One more thing, slightly OT re "The reason young people like Mac OS X so much is because it is stylish!": i do agree on the importance of a certain stylishness if you want to appeal to a younger (i.e. < 35-40y) crowd. Nonetheless, the success of Mac OS X cannot solely be attributed to stylishness but much more to said stylishness paired with rock solid and well concepted interaction design (resulting in high usability). This is about much more than just looks, as it needs to be considered at the very core of software design. And that's what makes the real difference and keeps people using something. Having the stylish looks without the interaction won't do. (NB: i don't think that Ubuntu should copy Mac OS X behaviour, which sure has its own flaws. It needs to get better than that, actually. And that's were the really hard work waits.) -- SaschaBrossmann 2005-12-24 02:50:13 ---<snip>--- all that criqtique withheld: yes, the mask *is* stylish and propably will appeal to quite a bunch of (younger) people. nonetheless, this stuff should IMHO in a certain way adhere more to the current identity. though, FWIW i would really like to see the overly dominant brown tossed for good, which i consider to have been a rather unlucky choice (also in terms of colour psychology, but i won't go into depths here). so, please, try to get either more powerful (brighter/saturated) or more neutral in terms of colours. better the latter, and spare the strong colours for significant accents to make a difference in places/for events where strong stimuli are important. best, sascha -- :: www.brsma.de :: ..: .:. . :.. ..: . . . . . . :: public key id 0x2EA549A0 ::.. :: . . . . .. . . . :: fingerprint 0A0C AE42 62F5 DB65 C5A1 E335 53FB 3888 2EA5 49A0
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