Discussion about: Logo Competition - Community Vote begins

[atelier]

A logo archive would be a great story in the news section.

Demonstrates the breadth of tallent and level of contribution that lives on here.

Adds to the outsiders perceptions that this is not a corporate show but a real community.

I had thought of this as well. In addition, it would be useful to include a link to the designer website or email as a resource for graphic talent.

[stingrey]

But that logo has a slogan embedded!

This is how the submitter crafted it so the original is shown as well as different resizings.

The slogan will not be used, that is a separate issure.


And as made clear at the start of the whole competition, the final logo will be reworked/refined to ensure it is fully professional and works, so issues like where the TM is placed will be examined.

[TomT]

I was very suprised by the selection. What have a bird and a fish in common with a open source CMS with the name Joomla? I thought the logo ought to represent the idea behind the project? I think only Joomla01 does this.

[molok]

I was very suprised by the selection. What have a bird and a fish in common with a open source CMS with the name Joomla? I thought the logo ought to represent the idea behind the project? I think only Joomla01 does this.

Amen!

[wspoint]

I was very suprised by the selection. What have a bird and a fish in common with a open source CMS with the name Joomla?

I think no more than burning fox with browser 

Anyways, Joomla 01 wins the race, I am sure of it.

[molok]

I was very suprised by the selection. What have a bird and a fish in common with a open source CMS with the name Joomla?

I think no more than burning fox with browser 

Anyways, Joomla 01 wins the race, I am sure of it.

I Hope so 

cheers

[thethepapapa]

A 'none of the above' choice would have been nice, because 'no choice'  is a choice too.

When I run surveys/focus groups...it is rather telling to find out that you may be marching away from your clients with your selections....isn't that the mistake *iro made?

Folks are going to start calling me 'Mr Wetblanket' around here pretty soon. 

Those who cannot remember the past, are condemed to repeat it. <--another nugget of borrowed wisdom.

[alandd]

I was very suprised by the selection. What have a bird and a fish in common with a open source CMS with the name Joomla? I thought the logo ought to represent the idea behind the project? I think only Joomla01 does this.

If you go look at the logo entries you can get some background to the artist's reasons for the design.

The fish entry: http://forum.joomla.org/index.php/topic,5239.0.html
The bird entry: http://forum.joomla.org/index.php/topic,4220.0.html

Alan

[mosey]

Thanks for the links Alandd They certainly do help!

It would be a good idea actually for the Joomla! team to place the same links next to those entries to enable easy reference. Else some people might just go for the aesthetics. I will say now that its quite a hard-vote to make! I'm so torn

[eyezberg]

I don't think a logo needs to convey the brand name's meaning: look at drupal, typo (other CMSes) for example; Adobe and Macromedia just use their initial(s); and any person just reading the name "joomla" and who doesn't happen to speak swahili won't have a clue about the meaning.
That's why on the contrary I think fish and bird are really good choices because "joomla" can be interpreted as their name, like the baseball teams falcon, bear, wolf etc for example.. "joomla the fish", or "joomlabird" can make very interesting usages.. more than just a logo.

[Birdie]

I have seen the horizontal white lines across the Jbird logo, too.  However, they will disappear if the page is refreshed.  (I am using Firefox.)  I think this should be mentioned as, when I first saw the lines,  it was enough to make me think, what in the world have they done?  I don't know the cause of the lines, but it seems to be a browser rendering thing.  Or maybe a computer component is dying...

A lot of the logos did not even show up on the page as I tried to see them all.

[mosey]

Ooh no wonder... I was wondering why the bird logo had those random white lines too Thanks!

[guider]

I don't think a logo needs to convey the brand name's meaning: look at drupal, typo (other CMSes) for example; Adobe and Macromedia just use their initial(s); and any person just reading the name "joomla" and who doesn't happen to speak swahili won't have a clue about the meaning.
That's why on the contrary I think fish and bird are really good choices because "joomla" can be interpreted as their name, like the baseball teams falcon, bear, wolf etc for example.. "joomla the fish", or "joomlabird" can make very interesting usages.. more than just a logo.

Disagree. It should mirror the emotions attached to the product. Free as a bird, community together or... wet like a fish and round like a ball? I don't really like the selection. A motivation would indeed have been really good but it's too late for that now.

[eyezberg]

Disagree with what, fish, or fish and bird? Mambo => Flower then, what is mirrored here..? Is a bird freeer than a fish? Different element, but both without boundries.. Is "wet" the only notion a fish suggests to you? Cute like Nemo, dangerous like a shark..? Heard about Mercede's new bionic car design copied from a fish? http://news.mongabay.com/2005/0710-DaimlerChrysler.html
Also, I'd say birds are more common in logos than fish.. if that makes any difference..

[SineMacula]

Heard about Mercede's new bionic car design copied from a fish? http://news.mongabay.com/2005/0710-DaimlerChrysler.html

shudder 

[mosey]

Interesting design for a car... I wonder if thats what future cars will all headtowards interms of shape...  (honestly no comment as to how much I 'like' its new bionic design  )

[rhuk]

I think it's a real shame that the then name "JoomlaFish" is really hurting this logo.  I didn't even notice the fish connotation until I looked up at the name.  I just saw a piece of paper with an exclaimation mark on it, and though that looks nifty!  Just my 2c.

[thethepapapa]

I admit, I like the use of the ! Very witty indeed.

But Joomlafish strikes me as Gefilte fish-ish. Oi-vey, not very tastey by a long shot!
The bird is looking rather chicken-ish for Bubbela...ahhh, brings back fond memories!

I guess I'm reading more into it than is there.

Brand brand brand brand, brand brand brand brand.

[ccondrup]

The bird is still chrashlanding, and not flying freely (meaning it's not pointed straight or upwards) - isn't this a major point? Should be, if this is the selected logo.

Wish them all luck, but would like to know more about the meaning behind them. (Yeah, I did read up on them before voting)

Yeah, also: I honestly don't get the nr.4 - What, are we taking over the world? Is it d-day? An eclipse? Maybe just Pacman eating something orange

[d3vlabs]

i don't like any of the finalists. some of the ones that didn't make it to top5 were better. regardless props to the creators.

[alandd]

The bird is still chrashlanding, and not flying freely (meaning it's not pointed straight or upwards) - isn't this a major point? Should be, if this is the selected logo.
...

These "bird crashing" comments caught me off guard.  I always saw it as a bird with wings lifted just prior to the first downstroke of lift off the ground.  Like the bird is about to take to flight.  The angle is such to remind me of a upper case "J"  It is very nice, creative and optimistic.

I voted for one of the others, however.  :^)

Alan

[SineMacula]

I think it's a real shame that the then name "JoomlaFish" is really hurting this logo.  I didn't even notice the fish connotation until I looked up at the name.  I just saw a piece of paper with an exclaimation mark on it, and though that looks nifty!  Just my 2c.

Interesting... I hadn't seen it as a piece of paper at all, but now that you mention it, I can see that and it makes me like it quite a bit more.

However, since I saw it as a fish before I saw the name, it probably wouldn't have influenced my vote if the name "Joomla Fish" hadn't been there.

[urquharttownson]

I already voted so it doesn't really matter to me but...

I found that I wanted to know background information about each of the logos.  Why did the artist choose what they did?  What was the idea or meaning behind the graphic?  This especially came up for the fish one.

I know that very information is probably in the contest submissions but it would be more convenient to have it right there with the logo on the voting page.  I purposefully stopped following all the submissions due to time constraints.  There were so many good ones I decided to just wait until the final five came out.

Of course, maybe part of the point is to see get the raw reaction to the logo without additional information.  In which case my request would defeat that point.

Alan

Since the Fish logo and the Bird logo artists gave their deep thoughts and reasoning behind their logos, I thought I would give mine. I was one of the lucky ones to place in the top five with the logo Joomla 01. Let me tell you, I was very surprised due to the amount of submissions and the amount of talent from the forum members. Good luck to everyone in the top 5. I feel honered to just have made it into that group.

First off, I didn't come up with the idea of a community together. Many of us forum members had the idea of people in a community, together and think that is what Joomla is about. The problems that I was seeing with the others logos pursuing this concept is that many of them resembled other business and technology logos. Some of them looked too much like the mambo logo, others to much like Ubuntu's logo. I wanted to keep the idea of togetherness without being too similar to other logos. I hadn't seen or come across anything that resembled my version of the logo closely so I went ahead with it.

I did have some thought behind the logo. I wanted to start with the letter "J" (obviously because joomla starts with a "J") and found that creating four "J"s and rotating the "J"s in 45 degree increments fit together like a puzzle. This also gives the impression of chain links  intertwined together. Adding the circles to each "J" gave the impression of people and the multiple colors gave the impression of different races, people, cultures, or whatever you would like to call it. Basically the icon portion of the logo shows a group of people intertwined together as one.

As for the font face I choose, I went with the standard Joomla font that is seen on the Joomla website. I felt the font face was a little thin so I fattened it up a bit. I didn't care for the uppercase "J" in the typeface so I decided to go with lowercase which I feel ties the "joomla"  text together because the top of the "j" resembles the exclamation point.

Finally as for the placement of the icon to the joomla text, I wanted to break away from the standard of center aligning the icon to the top of the text or the the left of the text. This is such comman practice, which isn't a bad thing...I've done my fair share of logos that follow that common practice, so I wanted to be different and place the joomla text to the left of the icon. I feel it fits better this way.

So there's my story behind the logo. Is there some deep thought behind the meaning of the logo, like the fish and the bird logo? No. I think it is pretty straight forward...A community intertwined and linked together as one.

[SineMacula]

So there's my story behind the logo. Is there some deep thought behind the meaning of the logo, like the fish and the bird logo? No. I think is pretty straight forward...A community intertwined and linked together as one.

That's a big part of what I like about yours - straight forward and directly about the community that uses, supports, and makes Joomla, especially given all the events leading to the formation of OSM and the naming of Joomla which show us the importance of community. So, for me, having a logo that offers a nod to that is really nice. Also, when thinking about adding a slogan, having the fact that Joomla has a strong, creative, diverse community behind it taken care of symbolically in the logo frees us up to refer to benefits of Joomla in the slogan. We can have origin covered in the logo, benefits covered with the slogan.

[myleftfoot]

I have seen the horizontal white lines across the Jbird logo, too.  However, they will disappear if the page is refreshed.  (I am using Firefox.)  I think this should be mentioned as, when I first saw the lines,  it was enough to make me think, what in the world have they done?  I don't know the cause of the lines, but it seems to be a browser rendering thing.  Or maybe a computer component is dying...

A lot of the logos did not even show up on the page as I tried to see them all.

I see lines on the JBird too using firefox. If I scroll it out of view and back down then it displays correctly. Note: The original submition doesn't do this. 

- lefty

[jgobiz]

Jambo!

many comments starts with something like "cool", "stylish", "excellent", "nice". And the tips in the contest rules starts with something like "who's the logo for", "must look good as tag line on web site for users", "must look good in different color spaces for screen & print(CMYK vs RGB)" and so on. For me IMHO, that´s like a duck takes the water and not a rare characteristic for a logo. It´s typical and nothing very special. In front of getting "cool", "stylish" and "must look great", it needs a "deep impact".

In the best case, the logo has not to be explained and nevertheless it transmits everything. Everything behind Joomla!. Whatever that may be. For example a symbol like the cross (some of you may excuse me for using the cross, it is for explanation) has not to be explained. It explained itself and everything behind.

Marketing agencies, sometimes especially the professional ones, may tell you all these cool and stylish who´s the logo for things. Because they earn money not only for the "logo concept". They earn money for the "branding strategy" also. And, back to the logo, if the logo explained itself, it brands itself. If it brands itself, it is probably not a really good cash machine.

Any portfolio needs "cash cows". And any portfolio has "poor dogs". Borrowed by Shakespeare: who is the cash cow and who is the poor dog, that´s the question. If i, as a customer, obtain "deep impact", the cash cow is on my side. If i get only "cool and stylish who´s the logo for", the cash cow from the meadow on the other side, is grazing my money. Everytime i have to pay for it, i will try to get some kind of "deep impact".

After careful consideration about "deep impact", i decided to vote for one of the five suggestions. For me personally, the "deep impact" from peek´s hand should have been on "Top". Does not matter. If 'ifs' and 'ans' were pots and pans there were no need of tinkers.

Heko to the Finalists!

Best regards,

Joern 

[idigital]

I did have some thought behind the logo. I wanted to start with the letter "J" (obviously because joomla starts with a "J") and found that creating four "J"s and rotating the "J"s in 45 degree increments fit together like a puzzle. This also gives the impression of chain links  intertwined together. Adding the circles to each "J" gave the impression of people and the multiple colors gave the impression of different races, people, cultures, or whatever you would like to call it. Basically the icon portion of the logo shows a group of people intertwined together as one.

Excellent work! I didn't even notice the four J's until I read your post. Really it best represents the "all together" meaning of the original Jumla swahili word perfectly, and makes a nice compact emblem to be used in many ways.

Really a great logo and one that I'd be proud to stick on my site, wear on a shirt, whatever

Cheers,

Damian

[Chris]

I did have some thought behind the logo. I wanted to start with the letter "J" (obviously because joomla starts with a "J") and found that creating four "J"s and rotating the "J"s in 45 degree increments fit together like a puzzle. This also gives the impression of chain links  intertwined together. Adding the circles to each "J" gave the impression of people and the multiple colors gave the impression of different races, people, cultures, or whatever you would like to call it. Basically the icon portion of the logo shows a group of people intertwined together as one.

Excellent work! I didn't even notice the four J's until I read your post. Really it best represents the "all together" meaning of the original Jumla swahili word perfectly, and makes a nice compact emblem to be used in many ways.

Really a great logo and one that I'd be proud to stick on my site, wear on a shirt, whatever

Cheers,

Damian

My sentiment exactly.

[TomT]

I think no more than burning fox with browser 

My remarks were about the logo, not the name. The logo of firefox is a firefox.

And by the way, I had allmost forgotten Peeks hand, i'd love to have seen that on my t-shirt  .

[ssdesign]

May the best win. two of my favourites are here.

Just wondering, why only Joomla01 is shown on the existing website header and not the others?

It would have been nice to compare how they all would look on the header.