I've been analyzing the proposed logos, gathered feedback, read logo design articles, and here's what I think so far.
A logo should be rather abstract than metaphoric. Trying to say too much in a logo makes a bad logo. Most famous examples are very simple, and say nothing about what the brand does: Adidas, Nike, MasterCard, The North Face, FedEx, AT&T, Sun, Oracle... Yet, everybody recognizes the Nike logo. There are three main characteristics of a logo: memorability, simplicity, cleverness. There's a tight connection between memorability and simplicity. The cleverness can sometimes harm the other two, if pushed too far. Having metaphors and product description embedded in a logo most of the times thrashes the logo. So, IMO this adds negative points to logos 4 and 15. Another problem with metaphors is that the metaphor might not be the perfect one, and even if it is initially, the brand evolves in time, so the metaphor would actually harm even more the logo and the brand. It was interesting to see two opposite opinions expressed about the proposed logos: Too unstructured, thus not really suited for XWiki, and Too regular/rigid, thus not appealing enough. This is an example of the two different types of people, more logical/technical and more emotional/artistic people. It's a classic psychological test, showing two drawings, one made of lines and one made of curves, and asking which one is better. When the left part of the brain is dominant, the straight lines are more appealing, and vice-versa. It's impossible to make either a straight or a wobbly logo that would satisfy everybody, so this is not a valid argument for choosing a logo on its own. Still, this becomes relevant when thinking about what is the main intended audience for the XWiki logo: technical or non-technical persons? To answer this, we need to answer another question: where will the logo be seen? IMO, mostly on xwiki.org. Actual XE installations will probably have a custom logo, one representing the institution using XWiki. What will be seen on these custom sites is the Powered By button, so this is a good reason to make it visible and recognizable. So, who comes on xwiki.org? Technical or non-technical persons? I'd say mostly technical persons, developers looking for the dev guide, admins looking for the admin guide, IT procurement staff looking for a wiki. Looking on the (users) mailing list and the FAQs, most users ask non-user questions, meaning that I've rarely seen questions like "how to insert a table" or "how do I change my password". Thus, I think that a more rigid, abstract logo is better for xwiki.org and its intended audience, adding negative points to 12, 15 and 19. If we want XWiki to look like a valid option for using in an enterprise, the logo should be technical, straight, structured. And IMO 16 is the most structured proposal. Now, what do I think about each logo: 4 is metaphoric: nice collaboration, writing documents together, appealing colors. Unfortunately, this is not the right metaphor. The colored pencils hint more at a drawing application than at an application development framework. And while the colors are nice, the logo doesn't look serious enough for an enterprise application. But I think that this would be a good starting point for a logo for the WYSIWYG editor, once it's completely independent to deserve its own logo, and has realtime capabilities. 12 is a bit familiar, abstract, and curvy enough to be a 2.0 logo. The feedback I got is that this is the best "friendly" proposal, but it doesn't inspire credibility. 15 is too metaphoric, and the revised version actually lost some of the most appreciated features in the first round: happiness, X + W. Now it's just an anthropomorphic shape, which is so common in logos, and which doesn't help differentiate XWiki from other brands. One person said that it looks like a good mascot for a sports event, but not for an enterprise application. 16 is indeed the most abstract and individualistic logo. I like the straight shape because it has less angles, thus more structure. I don't think that it should be readable, so I don't agree that this is an eliminatory criterion. All the other logos except 4 have this problem, since the shape for X does not always suggest that it's part of the name, as in XWiki, so more like "the wiki with an X-shaped logo". Even the .com logo has this problem, since it really causes confusion with Xwiki (lowercase w, since X is the only one bolder), or X-wiki (since the dash between X and W can be read as a real dash). Plus, unlike real brands that are seen in stores, our logo will mostly be seen on the web, right under the URL. It's not like people see it somewhere on the street and wonder what it means, without any means of finding out. If it's in a web page, it has a link nearby, and links still use real letters. 19 has only one strong point: the font used for WIKI. The shape used for the X is really not memorable or unique. Having that X as our logo is not a good idea, since it looks like one of the many paint-splash stickers that were once popular. My final vote, +1 for 16. On 04/08/2010 06:02 PM, Sergiu Dumitriu wrote: > Hello XWiki Community, > > We're still looking for the new XWiki.org logo. First of all, many > thanks to all those who submitted their ideas ( > http://dev.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/Community/LogoChallenge ). After the > first round of votes (digest here: > http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Ah6DqXzfHT2vdHV5Ty1LX3lKU3U5V3M4YmNFSXEzcVE&hl=en), > > we chose 6 "popular" proposals for the second round: > http://dev.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/Community/LogoChallengeRound2 . > > The authors of these proposals were asked to do the following, if not > already done for round 1: > * try to integrate any constructive feedback that came with the > votes (a digest of the feedback from the emails is available for each > proposal on > http://dev.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/Community/LogoChallengeRound2 ) > * polish the design (if they consider it necessary) > * provide the requested variations for .org, enterprise and office > * provide samples for light and dark background > * provide a black&white version > * provide a 16X16 icon containing the logo or a representative part > of the logo > * provide a nice "Powered by XWiki" button that goes with the logo > * provide a mockup/screenshot with the logo used in the current > skin, colibri > > For most of the finalist logos, the _final_ versions were already > uploaded here: > http://dev.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/Community/LogoChallengeRound2 . > For those who were not updated, we will use the initial submissions > for round 2 as well, > and voters will have to use their imagination in case > any of the required use cases is missing. > > > VOTING: > > You can send your vote on the mailing list ([email protected] or > [email protected]), in reply to this email. No twitter votes this time. > > Each voter can grant a whole +1 to only one of the 6 finalists > ( > http://dev.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/Community/LogoChallengeRound2#HFinalistproposals > ). > > IMPORTANT: Before choosing a logo based on your personal preference, > please try to also ask yourself the following questions: > > * Is it distinctive? Note that it should not resemble other logos, > including the XWiki SAS/xwiki.com logo. > * Is it easy to remember and recognize? > * Does it blend in smoothly with the Colibri skin? With the new > XWiki.org skin? Note that adjustments to the skin is possible, in order > to better integrate with the logo. > * Is the design scalable? Could it (or parts of it) be > successfully used in a 16X16 icon? Would it look good on a very large > poster? > * Can it be used (as it is, or adapted) on both light and dark backgrounds? > * What would it look like in black and white (not just grayscale)? > It's ok if some details are lost, but it needs to still look > attractive and keep the main features. > > > TIMELINE: > > 08/Apr/10 : Beginning of second round of votes on [email protected], > [email protected] > 11/Apr/10 : End of votes -- Sergiu Dumitriu http://purl.org/net/sergiu/ _______________________________________________ users mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/users
