[Freedombox-discuss] "Promotion and Visual Identity"

[Robert Martinez]

Thank you for your feedback!

On 03/11/11 12:03, FreedomBox-Discuss.NeoPhyte_Rep at OrdinaryAmerican.net 
wrote:
> 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.

James will set up a "Promotion and Visual Identity" list after all, 
everybody interested will be welcome to join.

>> 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?)
Right now it would be 5 already, but I wasn't working 24/7 either. ;)
>> 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/
Thank you I'm glad to get that kind of feedback, too.
>> 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.

Thank you again for your kind feedback!
Regarding the tone of the manual I was a bit unsure whether to convince 
the reader OR to give a direction.
I decided to see this document as a tool for providing answers for 
designers.
Something useful for the community, not useful for me to establish my idea.

I don't want to scare anybody away with the tone, maybe I did.
I don't have strong feelings in adding/changing/correcting/reordering 
the text as long at it remains useful to any future designing 
contributor. If my programming skills aren't completely useless I would 
choose the analogy of an "interface": You either stay conform to how it 
wants to be treated - or you won't be able to work together, no matter 
what it actually IS what you're doing.

Of course I can write a "documentation" to help understand the tone :)


>
> _______________________________________________
> Freedombox-discuss mailing list
> Freedombox-discuss at lists.alioth.debian.org
> http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss