[OSM-talk] new logo

[SteveC]

On May 16, 2010, at 10:35 AM, Frederik Ramm wrote:

> Robert,
> 
> Robert Martinez wrote:
>> There has to be a design department for OSM with authority and 
>> competence
> 
> [...]
> 
>> My conclusion is a plea to the project management: please try to find a 
>> capable design team as soon as you can!
> 
> Do you know *anything* about OSM at all? Do you have *any* knowledge of, 
> or respect for, how the project works? There are no departments with 
> authority and no desire to create them; there is no project management. 
> How can you even think about designing a logo for a project of which you 
> understand so little?

He's just pointing out what I did a few months back - the design, usability and aesthetic of OSM is a big mess.

My vote is that we just put him in charge of fixing it, but I don't really want another fight with all of those who know little about, er, design, usability or aesthetic. If we spent 10% of the time that's gone in to making the map call C++ or making potlatch look like Windows 3.1 instead of looking like Windows 3.0... on just turning over some of these aspects to a design czar, it would have a much, much larger effect on bounce rate, data entered, project visibility, user happiness...

And yes I know what I wrote on the wiki about JFDI back in 1987 or whatever. But we have these walls that we didn't have then. If you want to get a sweeping design done it will take a herculean effort because there's so much fight on this list on even whether good design is a good thing, or whether more users is a good thing, or you have to write everything the 'right' way... and you, Frederik jump on the guy because he doesn't know much about the project? That's actually a pretty good thing. He doesn't know he has to be friends with Tom to get something deployed, he doesn't know he'll have to fight Matt being defensive about his logo, he doesn't know all the political shit that is getting in the way of moving forward in a meaningful way.

If he did know all this, I suspect he would go and do something useful with his life instead of wasting it here. It's not even that any of the above is bad - it's great that the map call is now constant memory or whatever (thanks to matt?), it's awesome that Tom is guardian to a set of stable servers and he holds that key so judiciously, but we have to realise too what barriers this throws up to innovation, and try and get out of the way when necessary.

So, Robert Martinez, I salute you for pushing on. Things have gotten old and crusty here, and it needs some designers with their heads screwed on. Nobody means to me horrible to you, it's just the tone of the list sometimes and people don't like change. If you want some real fun go read the legal list archives and look how long it takes to make anything happen.

And you can squabble all you want people, but in the mean time waze is kicking our ass. I wonder how many Frederik's they have at waze writing essays on why design is bad and we don't need new users.

Oh, I guess I do want this fight again.

Yours &c.

Steve