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Re: Textpattern Resources Logo & Icons Design Contest
Oh yes keep the garden theme and maybe a girl this time?
Stuart
In a Time of Universal Deceit
Telling the Truth is Revolutionary.
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Re: Textpattern Resources Logo & Icons Design Contest
Several people, including the site owners, like the idea of TXR, TXG, TXB and possibly TXM having similar logos based on the original TXP logo, so why not have another competition?
I don’t think the TXR winner has a god-given right to produce the other logos just because of one good idea. As Destry pointed out, the ‘digging guy’ isn’t quite in the same style as the original, needing to be more flowing and less blocky, and perhaps someone could come up with better logos now that the concept has been established.
Perhaps the site owners could judge as a team and come up with guidelines such as all the lines should have similar thickness, the viewpoints (eg side on) should all be the same, it should be done in greyscale for comparison (as colour could be added later) etc, so that near-perfect consistency across sites is achieved, which I think is essential. Stuart’s idea of the girl at the easel sounds good to me and if Destry or Alexandra could also indicate their preference, I am sure that would help too. The artists might have better ideas and should be allowed some leeway to express themselves, of course.
IMHO a competition now, with criteria laid down, perhaps to finish at the end of November, would be effective and productive, and good fun too :-)
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Re: Textpattern Resources Logo & Icons Design Contest
What exactly are you trying to accomplish with the “text-family” thing, from a branding standpoint?
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Re: Textpattern Resources Logo & Icons Design Contest
Well from my own view-point I think the names do the “branding” side of things. I wasn’t thinking in terms of having similar logos. I think the logos should reflect the content in some way so as to connect it. In other words we have the branding in the names, now we need some “theming” in the logos. I think TextGarden is a great name for the site but it doesn’t exactly shout “STYLES” at you does it? It needs something extra to make the connection and I’m not sure that a monotone logo like those above cuts the mustard here. Not that I’m moaning about the logos that came out of the competition I should add, I think they are excellent, but my own feeling is that TXG needs something with a bit of colour in it, just like a garden. That’s what TXG is all about. Colour and design.
You know, we have some well-known TXP users who design logos for a living. How do they look at this kind of thing?
Stuart
In a Time of Universal Deceit
Telling the Truth is Revolutionary.
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Re: Textpattern Resources Logo & Icons Design Contest
I guess I’ll just throw out some of my ideas in terms of the whole Tx* branding issue is concerned:
I think that the positive associations with the original TXP logo come from a general reverence of Ancient Greece. The chiseler denotes a time when you had to really consider your words because it was a big deal to put them down on pap….er marble, a time when there was a great respect for writing and thinking but only a select few could afford to have chiselers or scribes to record their work for all to see. The conclusion I draw from the chiseler logo is that we can now each have our own personal chiseler (TXP), who frees us up to record our thoughts and ideas on a whim for the world to view, ushering in a modern renaissance of ideas. This is a very positive conclusion, and when looking at the logo in the admin section, I get the sense that the chiseler is always there and “working for me”.
I would recommend that the other satellite sites run with this idea (and it needn’t replicate the exact style), maybe going with the same sort of loose associations with ancient greece. In that vein there is a lot of material to reference. TextGarden could be symbolised by the Greek reverence for beauty, perhaps a female statue in the garden? or a woman in toga picking the flowers? My middle school history is beginning to fail me at this point ;) but there is a great deal of imagery associated with the greeks. Ornate vases for storage, aquaducts for transmission to masses, the great philosophers of the age and their disciples, etc.. etc…
Or perhaps the symbology could be expanded to other ancient cultures as well, maybe even just a vague reference to the prototypical “ancient enlightened culture”.
Anyway, just throwing it out there, talk amongst yourselves…
Last edited by bizartist (2005-10-12 00:31:04)
After enduring years of Art School, mild mannered Owen Waring noticed some unusual changes… the constant bombardment of criticism, it seems, had altered his DNA. Half pixel pusher, half programmer, he had become…. THE BIZARTIST
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Re: Textpattern Resources Logo & Icons Design Contest
> thebombsite wrote:
> I think TextGarden is a great name for the site but it doesn’t exactly shout “STYLES” at you does it?
Actually, it does to those of us who get the Zen Garden reference. At least to Drupal users.
But I think that those who don’t get it will still probably find their way there.
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Re: Textpattern Resources Logo & Icons Design Contest
Although I think having theme icons (person working somehow) is a great idea (as well as the associated buttons in a given site’s footer), which would effectively bridge the family of major sites across TxP, let’s not forget the objective of this current activity, which was to REBOOT — and on time.
I think the selection was a good one; though I commented before that digging guy needs a little modifying to be more reflective of the original working person style (fluid bold lines, less precision…generally less rubberstamp looking). The soil in that image especially should be feathered-out so it’s not so blocky in that corner, it should be more organic, perhaps extending out under the first couple of letters (Te) in the logo.
That aside, I don’t see anything wrong with making quiet changes later, whether to TxR’s icon or to any of the other sites. I would just hope that any implementation of a theme of working-person icons would be in the direction of the orginal style of artwork that chisel guy is in. To me, that just adds a level of professionalism to it.
—-
It occurs to me that having a person doing brick and mortor work, like a brick wall, would have been a great icon too, symbolizing the assembly of the bricks (TxP components) that make up a solid finished wall/product (Textpattern site). A healthy woman doing brick and mortar work — yeah, baby, YEAH! (read with your best Austin Powers impersonation)
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#80 2005-10-12 10:30:38
- ian_ep
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- Registered: 2004-02-29
- Posts: 25
Re: Textpattern Resources Logo & Icons Design Contest
Although I quite like the wee digging guy – it is certainly the best of the logos submitted – I don’t see any reason to ‘style’ it closer to Dean’s original Texpattern logo. Nor do I think it necessary impose some pseudo-corporate ‘brand’ gudelines on the various Textpattern resource sites. On the contrary, I find the idea quite antithetical to the spirit of Texpattern.
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Re: Textpattern Resources Logo & Icons Design Contest
Being that I used a lot of <em>I think</em>‘s and <em>I would</em>‘s, in that last post of mine, I would hope people realize it was all just my opinion on things, which means absolutely nothing by itself. In the same respect, I should also clarify that I like Rayben’s logo for what it is (good job, man) and meant no disrespect there, I just think it could me morphed a bit to serve purposes better (again, my opinion).
That said, I don’t see where anyone (me or whomever) is trying to “impose” anything, that would certainly not be in the spirit of the community.
Referencing the word “corporate” is an easy use of the stigma it brings, and the word “brand” has almost the same negative connotations anymore, especially when used in the same breath as corporate. In any case, it’s not even relevent. Some of us are simply talking about making it visually clear to new users of this product what the official — no, reliable — resources are for Textpattern, and one excellent way of doing that is by using a consistent theme (with some clever variations, of course). How specific you want to get with the styling is up for community debate, which is what’s going on here.
In the end, it’s probably insignificant; it’s very unlikely that any of the logo submissions would confuse potential Textpattern users, and it’s especially insignificant if site buttons were adopted (e.g., in footers), which would be clear indicators (and easy links) for users to know about other site’s in the family.
Last edited by Destry (2005-10-12 12:16:23)
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Re: Textpattern Resources Logo & Icons Design Contest
I know that those of us “in the know” make the connection between TextGarden and Zen Garden but oddly the vast majority of surfers have never heard of Zen Garden and I suspect the same could be said for new users of TXP who have not done much or any styling before. That said, and even if everybody had heard of Zen Garden, I still think that the name needs to be connected to the content in some visual manner within the banner. I just think that is good design at the end of the day.
I do like the idea of having “corporate” (sorry Destry) link logos that can be used in the footer or sidebar so that people know that they are linking to an “approved” site.
Stuart
In a Time of Universal Deceit
Telling the Truth is Revolutionary.
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Re: Textpattern Resources Logo & Icons Design Contest
thebombsite wrote: I do like the idea of having “corporate” (sorry Destry) link logos that can be used in the footer or sidebar so that people know that they are linking to an “approved” site.
Exactly, whether it’s logos or a set of standard size buttons (which I think could be utilized in sites easier), provide some consistant identifiers in all the sites Dean has endorsed in one way or another and you make it immediately more clear what the official resources are, as well as facilitate the ability of moving between them.
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Re: Textpattern Resources Logo & Icons Design Contest
> bizartist wrote:
I think that the positive associations with the original TXP logo come from a general reverence of Ancient Greece.
I thought it was more ancient than that – maybe almost Sumerian. The digger fits right in.
The chiseler denotes a time when you had to really consider your words because it was a big deal to put them down on pap….er marble, a time when there was a great respect for writing and thinking but only a select few could afford to have chiselers or scribes to record their work for all to see. The conclusion I draw from the chiseler logo is that we can now each have our own personal chiseler (TXP), who frees us up to record our thoughts and ideas on a whim for the world to view, ushering in a modern renaissance of ideas. This is a very positive conclusion, and when looking at the logo in the admin section, I get the sense that the chiseler is always there and “working for me”.
Well said. The digger fits right in.
Why not just have a globe with a heart on it? Well, remember, don’t try to do too much with a logo. It doesn’t need to be a social statement of things we probably (hopefully) all agree on anyway.
(Just so you know: I had a VERY caustic sentence in there. I am so glad I deleted it before posting. You all probably would have taken out contracts on me. That was a close one. You ought to be proud of me for my restraint. It was clever, really clever. But it had the power to destroy the Textpattern community as we know it, so I had to get rid of it. Excuse me while I go lie down a bit.)
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