[Freedombox-discuss] "Promotion and Visual Identity"

[FreedomBox-Discuss.NeoPhyte_Rep at OrdinaryAmerican.net]

Basically, you've done an excellent job laying out the issues.  Thank you.

Other comments inline.

On Wed, Nov 2, 2011 at 5:33 PM, Robert Martinez - mail at mray.de wrote:
> Hi there,
>
> looks like Debora, Matt and I are the only (vocal) "Promotion and Visual
> Identity" people on this list right now. Or am I missing somebody?
> It seems obvious that we don't need our own list.

There are others here, like me, who have little talent in this area,
but have valid comments to make concerning our aesthetic response to
the proposals.  Please don't go off into your own corner and discuss
things in private among the three of you.  Release early and release
often in the open arena of this list as you have done here this time,
please.  Thank you.

>
> My primary interest here is to push for the development of a visual
> identity.

It's good to have someone passionate about the issue taking on the challenge.

> In my eyes the suggestions so far cannot provide the required quality for a
> strong and successful identity.
> I see many shortcomings in terms of scalability, distinctiveness or
> uniqueness.

https://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/images/freedombox_large.png
definitely has scalability issues.

> Of course this is only my opinion and I see that maybe there are other
> perspectives and I'm willing to discuss this!
>
> But first I would like to show the result of my efforts that lasted for
(four?)
> months.
> In order to draw a more concrete image I didn't only create a logo but a
> whole identity manual.
> It is not just a "nice to have" that comes in handy when you need to create
> flyers, posters, web-pages,...  It also addresses other aspects that need to
> be decided for a complete identity. Have a look:
>
> http://mray.de/identity-video.webm (2.5MB, documentation/presentation video)
> http://mray.de/identity-manual.pdf (1.1MB, identity manual)

If this is an example of the quality of your work, thank you for
joining the project.  You just raised the value of the brand.

A small nit on page 10:
"Remeber there are special variants for different backgrounds."
s/Remeber/Remember/

> opinions?

The butterfly does convey freedom to a larger audience than a Gnu
reference does.  Thank you for that suggestion.
The butterfly does carry a notion of fragility which people should
recognize is an intrinsic feature of Freedom.  Again, thank you.

The manual seems to me a bit didactic.  I've seen other brand identity
manuals and that appears to be the standard approach, so I'm not
surprised.  I do wish there was some way to make the tone more
encouraging the adoption of the identity rather than demanding
conformance.  I, a volunteer, don't respond well to dictators, even if
they know what they are talking about.  When programmers have flame
wars about style, they still understand that each is dealing with an
intelligent opponent with potentially well founded arguments, even if
their chosen words don't always reflect that.  I'm not an excellent
writer, but I think ir would be good if the manual reflected a similar
attitude.

Again, thank you for a well presented offering.