skins

Alephcat · Post by **Alephcat** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 6:33 pm

I agree with you wholeheartedly Clem, we need an Identifiable shape. I once heard Matt Groening (creator of the Simpsons) say that for any cartoon character to be truly successful it needed to have a very identifiable shape in profile. the same seems to apply with Linux distros (except you can drop the "in profile") as all the most successful distros seem to have a simple easily identifiable shape as a logo, Ubuntu's circle of humanity, Debian's swirl, Red Hat/Fedora's hat, Mandriva's star and swoosh, and SuSE's chameleon. So I feel we need to come up with our own "shape".

carlos · Post by **carlos** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 6:50 pm

That was one of the goals I had when I designed my version of the logo. To have a logo that will be instantly recognizable. Believe it or not there is a leaf shape there, maybe not as noticeable at first, but it is there.

I wanted to try to avoid the usual leaf logo and give the impression of the shape. But no reason to try again and see what people can come up with. This is good feedback and definitely a good exercise.

Back to the drawing board!

hippy · Post by **hippy** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 7:49 pm

clem wrote:About the logo: The official logo is Tiptup's (the green one that's at the top on this forum). Carlos proposed the logo you mentioned. For Cassandra we need to make a choice:
- The current logo
- Carlos' logo
- Another one.

I'd like to go for another one. The reason is:
- Tiptup's logo is nice and simple, very likable. But we don't have any high-res version of it. And it looks too much like Ubuntu's logo (and it's time we make our own identity).
- Carlos logo looks more professional, and is better defined. It has a strong identity of its own and that's what you want from a logo. However I don't like the "LM", I'd rather have a shape, and it doesn't look as "friendly" and warm as Tiptup's logo... a bit too cold.

For this reason I'd like us to design a logo which would be as professional and of the same quality as Carlos' but with the simplicity and warmth of Tiptup's.

Just a thought, i am sorry i cannot offer an example my graphics skills leave a lot to be desired, but my thought was a dictionary definition when i typed in mint came back with this "A place where coins and medals are made. Also: An herb with a pleasant smell."

My thought is if one of our talented artists got to work maybe the logo could be represented by a medal, circular in shape with say 2 inners circles using a fading effect e,g, darker to light green theme and linux mint written in the centre circle

anyway just something to ponder on

NiksaVel · Post by **NiksaVel** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 7:52 pm

I would deffinitely use a different logo than the present one as I think we should have our own brand for Linux Mint...

I like carlos' logo, but I understand what you are talking about...
I believe it is the matter of perception of round vs edged object where round signifies safety and edged danger and aggression... it's a psyche thing

maybe this can help you with adjusting your logo a bit

and one more note... a logo must be SIMPLE! Very simple, yet memorable.

NiksaVel · Post by **NiksaVel** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 7:56 pm

Oh... and while I don't have anything really constructive to offer... I'd suggest keeping the letters LM in the logo... maybe even invert (mirror) L and merge them together to form the essence of the new logo?

NiksaVel · Post by **NiksaVel** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 9:29 pm

how about something along these lines?

It's just a concept... I was thinking about combining letters L and M to create the essence of the Linux Mint logo with carlos' leaf outline... I was most inspired by fedora's "f" forming the infinity sign - thats a great logo...

carlos · Post by **carlos** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 10:30 pm

I love the type treatment.

I think that it stands on its own. But it doesn't work in the leaf, seems unbalanced. Try it on its own see what you think.

NiksaVel · Post by **NiksaVel** » Thu Mar 08, 2007 4:48 am

could you send me the source image for the leaf? it's nikola.leder@gmail.com

NiksaVel · Post by **NiksaVel** » Thu Mar 08, 2007 4:53 am

here is the "balanced version"

Post by **clem** » Thu Mar 08, 2007 7:50 am

IMHO the background should be transparent and we shouldn't rely on the color of the background for the logo to look nice.

NiksaVel · Post by **NiksaVel** » Thu Mar 08, 2007 10:12 am

agreed.... maybe I should do my suggestion simpler i.e. B&W... I was just trying to show what came to my mind as an idea so I didn't bother cutting the bg etc...

I would also invite others to comment on my suggestion or give some other brainstormy ideas

Alephcat · Post by **Alephcat** » Thu Mar 08, 2007 10:39 am

I think we should stick with colour, black & white looks like older technology IMHO.

NiksaVel · Post by **NiksaVel** » Thu Mar 08, 2007 11:18 am

B&W is used when designing a logo to create the core - the central memorable image that is the sign - the logo... colors, gradients and all the other eyecandy come easy after you have the core of the matter

carlos · Post by **carlos** » Thu Mar 08, 2007 11:45 am

Nik You Have mail! I know I have color in my version of the logo, but like I've mentioned in my original posting of the logo and website idea. I made sure to create a logo that will do well when its printed and it stand well on its own without color.

Here's the thing. Branding something is very time consuming with a lot of thought that goes into it. When a corporation wants a new brand they spend thousands to millions of dollars to come up with a logo and design style that gets applied to everything.

Obviously that wasn't done here, but it should be approached in the same manner. This is something that is going to stick for a long time so we have to make sure its the best it can be. I did alot of the work for over a month going through imagery comparing existing logos defining what I personally thought the brand was. Again just go back to the original post to find more detail on the thought process.

The one thing that wasn't included was feedback from Clem and the community. I had feedback from friends and family and co-workers, but in the end its the community that is going to decide.

My personal roadmap was to create a brand, create themes to match the brand and then finalize the website. But it was a personal roadmap, to be completed as I had time.

Thankfully, NiksaVel has been lighting a fire under all this, which I think is great, also it helps that he is a talented artist too

. Clem finally gave some excellent feedback on what he has felt about the logo.
I completely agree with Clem's critique of the logo. It is definitely more oriented towards a cutting edge company then a dynamic community.

Problem with what I have created is that everything is very dependent on each other so changes have to be made methodically so the integrity of the design still stands. Thankfully i still have alot of the research I did so it shouldn't be too much time until I can come back with a new idea.

Sorry about the long post. I just wanted to make sure that everybody is aware of where I'm coming from and to hopefully better understand what was contributed and will be contributed.

NiksaVel · Post by **NiksaVel** » Thu Mar 08, 2007 11:53 am

Thankfully, NiksaVel has been lighting a fire under all this, which I think is great, also it helps that he is a talented artist too

hehe... I wouldn't say that... I just want to help... what I really like is play and tweak around with themes and skins... but I realise that doing anything in that area is a wasted effort until we decide on some standards for mint, starting with logo ...

I'm sure you'll come up with something real great, real soon