[Freedombox-discuss] "Promotion and Visual Identity"

[Rob van der Hoeven]

Hi Robert,

I think the project will definitively benefit from a strong visual
identity. It is more important than most people think. Your identity
manual is a good start for discussing the visual identity of the
project.

Here are some of my thoughts (i am a programmer, not an expert...):

I like the simplicity of your butterfly logo. It is both memorable and
has an unique shape. Some problems are: 

1) The butterfly has been used many times in logo's. MSN uses a
butterfly...
2) I think the butterfly is not gender/age neutral. It will be more
attractive to women and children than men. 

I think your logo is better than the "little cow coming out of a box"
that the Freedombox Foundation currently uses. We as GNU/Linux users can
immediately understand what this logo represents. We are all
GNU-huggers! The target audience of the project are normal users who may
never have heard of GNU, or have heard of GNU and consider it "the sign
of the geek". I strongly believe the project should have its own
identity and should not mix this identity with another project (GNU)

On my website i use a picture of a Bumble Bee in the header. Maybe this
creature is a worthy candidate to represent the FreedomBox? A Bumble Bee
is:

1) Free
2) Friendly 
3) Social
4) Buzzing with activity, doing important work
5) Amazing - how can this creature fly? 
6) More hug-able than a GNU...

I like the Friendly FreedomBox Bumble Bee (F2B2 for short)

Over and....
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/16/Rimsky-Korsakov_-_flight_of_the_bumblebee.ogv

Rob van der Hoeven
http://freedomboxblog.nl


On Thu, 2011-11-03 at 01:33 +0100, Robert Martinez 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.
> 
> My primary interest here is to push for the development of a visual 
> identity.
> An identity is badly needed to successfully gather and keep attention, 
> as well as to foster the public perception of the project! So I looked 
> around what the situation is right now. These are the ideas for an 
> identity/logo that I found:
> https://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/  :P
> http://joshuaspodek.com/freedombox-logo-designs
> https://secure.flickr.com/photos/el_bazza/5636100752/
> https://secure.flickr.com/photos/el_bazza/5637038700/in/photostream
> https://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/images/freedombox_large.png
> 
> 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.
> 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 
> 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)
> 
> 
> opinions?
> 
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