[OSM-talk] new logo

[Frederik Ramm]

Steve,

SteveC wrote:
> I think we should probably vote that person in. But sitting around
> saying "it looks like clipart" gets us utterly nowhere. All that does
> is piss the guy off, and he clearly knows a lot more design than you
> or I do, or are likely to know. We should welcome him, say cool -
> here are the tools, you show us the way, but we have some concerns
> a,b,c,d...x. And you have to accept that not all of your concerns are
> going to be fixed, just like with the license process. Because design
> by committee just doesn't work. But instead, he gets told it's just
> crappy clip art and he hasn't paid his respects by learning `git` yet
> to be considered part of the community. Come on. That's totally
> bonkers.

Now I don't know the background of this. Maybe someone has talked to him 
and told him we desperately needed a new logo or so. Maybe that someone 
has worked with Robert in the past and knows he's a good designer. I 
have only judged what he has submitted to the list, and from this I 
cannot say that he "cleary knows a lot more design than you or I". I 
think the logo is executed well enough, i.e. he clearly knows his 
Inkscape or whatever, but to me a good design process would also mean to 
- and these are Robert's words - "capture the essence" and convey it. 
And this is precisely what the logo does not do.

Feedback in this direction came from me and others, and the replies that 
Robert had to offer were (1) the current logo isn't any better, and (2) 
it cannot be done because the space is limited in such a small logo.

But this is *exactly* why I (and probably most other people) suck at 
creating logos or icons - it is very difficult to capture the essence of 
something in so small a space. And this is exactly what I would expect 
from a good designer - make an OSM logo which immediately communicates 
that here's people making a map. Now that would be good.

> Now, this guy comes along and wants to make things better - cool! Let
> him have at it I say, because it's not like we need to stick with his
> logo if we choose forever, is it? It's not like we can't ask him to
> come back with a bunch of alternative designs, is it?

Sure. It was only after his insistence, and his call for better 
management, that I concluded that he seems to know little of OSM. Before 
that, I said quite simply and clearly that I do not like his design 
because it makes us look like a POI collecting project. I'm happy for 
him to take this feedback, which wasn't mine alone, and work on a bunch 
of alternative designs.

> I catch flak because I'm frank,

No, you have tried to use this justification many times before and it 
has been explained to you that it is possible to be frank without 
alienating people. You may be frank, but you display very little 
sensibility to people's feelings. For example, the first time you came 
up with new designs for the front page was when you had CloudMade 
designers make mockups. Did you really think that people in a free and 
open project would like to have their front page designed that way? The 
designs could have been the best designs in the world, they would not 
have been accepted. Sometimes messages need to be wrapped properly, and 
being unwilling to use respect and politeness means that many messages 
will be discarded even if they carry some truth.

> When Steve Jobs went back to apple one of the first things he did was
> throw away all the stuff that was in the campus museum. Old macs,
> Apple ]['s and all that. 

I have difficulties in seeing how Steve Jobs and Apple fit in here. I 
think Apple sucks but I don't think it is relevant. I don't believe in 
gurus either.

> Because you can't invent the future by
> looking at the past. Of all the amazing achievements OSM has made,
> none is as important as the ones to come. If you don't believe that,
> then there's not a lot of point being here because that would mean
> we're a declining project, and therefore there are better things to
> do elsewhere. 

Indeed you sound like you've listened too much to charismatic gurus. You 
sound like you're trying to create meaningful quotes for posterity. You 
are not arguing with me, you are talking to the camera. Think about what 
you're saying! Just because physics has interesting things in store for 
the future doesn't mean that anyone learning the theory of relativity is 
looking backwards and has no place in physics.

> And I'm telling you, you're looking backward, and you
> want a process, and a working group so that in about 2 years someone
> might improve the site design.

No, I'm happy for someone to create a design on their own. Of course it 
would make sense to talk about the goals first so that there's no 
disappointment later. I think you are right in saying that design cannot 
be done by a committee, but the designers sure should talk to their 
clients before they start, no?

> When I go to conferences, do talks and all that I am OSMs biggest
> defender. We have the best design in the universe, the servers are
> infinitely scalable and all that, but here on the list I won't
> rebroadcast our press releases. We have to be honest and our best
> self-critic.

Agreed.

> * Why the hell is the license taking so long? Are you guys morons?
> Does anything happen in OSMF? * Why is everything so hard to use? Why
> does the design/usability suck? Why don't you fix it? You guys must
> be morons.

Tell you what (since this is our list and we must be our best 
self-critic): The reason for all this is that OSM is based on one giant 
marketing lie. That lie is "Map making is simple. Everyone can do it." - 
The truth of the matter is that map making is hellishly complex, and the 
best editor in the world cannot shield the user from this complexity.

What we can do, and have successfully done, is stripping complexity from 
the product - the map that we are making is not as complex as the maps 
other people are making, starting with simple things like precision, and 
we can do that because we don't need such a complex map. Hardly anyone 
needs it - at the moment. But even now you see people (this time, mind 
you, not in Germany but in France!) starting to do indoor mapping and 
reaching the limits of accuracy that OSM permits. Some might say this is 
stupid, but others think it's the new hype - not long before you iPhone 
will not only guide you to the supermarket with the best chocolate, but 
also land you in the correct aisle directly in front of the project. All 
thanks to OSM micro mapping. But all these things, while cool, will make 
things more complex.

I'm sure that we can do a lot of things to make things simpler but at 
the heart of the matter OSM will not only remain "hard to use", it will 
become harder to use. Yes we can have simple editors, but either they 
ruthlessly break stuff others have created, or they will more and more 
have to bring up messages like: "This supermarket has complex indoor 
mapping information which cannot be edited with this editor."

Map making is not simple, and only a fraction of the population of this 
planet will ever be able to do it.

> What I try to explain of course is that if I could fix it tomorrow I
> would, but they should think of OSM as a small branch of a political
> party committee where everyone gets a veto so nothing happens.

I don't think you should talk about "veto" so much. It is not about 
people. Instead, it is more and more the complexity of the data that 
"vetoes" certain things. You can make a simple POI editor all right, but 
anything above that will always lead to situations like "let's make this 
simple for the user and just have this one button" - "oh no, that won't 
work with the land use areas in France" - "then let's do it that way" - 
"but then you break the multi-storey car parks that people in the states 
have started to map..." and so on.

Time for a data model czar and throw away all this backward looking shit 
of tagging freedom?

Sometimes it is hard to distinguish between the pillars of your success 
which should not be crushed, and romantic backward looking baggage. What 
do your gurus say about this one?

> I think you're talking about what OSM *was* about. It's not just 20
> people any more. And it's not the libertarian Free code community of
> yesteryear that you want it to be. It's people from every demographic
> and we lose literally thousands of potential contributors every day
> because we turn them off with that ethic, which reflects everything
> from the site design to the tone of email.

You mean that to keep pace with Waze and Google Map Maker, we should 
simply drop the libertarian bullshit and become just another company 
with top-down decision making and a marketing department that does 
whatever seems best? Just because others manage abuse their "community" 
by taking their work and giving them nothing in return, save perhaps for 
a few stars in a ranking list, we should try to pull off the same?

> Have a look at waze's twitter feed. *That* is the kind of community
> building we need to be doing now. It's not free software nuts in
> their basement anymore (speaking as a free software nut who lived in
> a basement). 

I have had no exposure to Waze whatsoever. I am not surprised that if 
you drop the community and we're-all-in-this-together baggage you can 
manage more efficiently. I do not doubt that Waze would, for example, be 
able to switch their license to anything they want at any time, or 
secretly develop a new logo and web site and unveil it at the push of a 
button. I'm quite happy that I am not part of a marketing-driven project 
like that.

> And I
> sense you're pushing against it all because of your idea of what a
> community should look like, and it's just going to be a cul-de-sac if
> we insist on all this stuff because the people who want to contribute
> these days are a whole different crowd that people like waze are much
> better at helping. And it should be _us_ at the forefront not them!

To me, someone contributing to TomTom MapShare or Waze or Google Map 
Maker or any other we-own-all-your-work project is just a cow being 
milked. Old-fashioned world view maybe, but this is the one point were 
personally I am totally, absolutely unwilling to move. It is absolutely 
clear to me that there's a giant gap between what we are doing and what 
they are doing. We treat our community with respect because we're in 
this together; they do it for their, or their shareholders', monetary 
gain. For them, it is a fucking *job*. I am not even willing to compare.

> In a company you don't have the accountants running PR. You don't
> have PR cleaning the toilets and you don't have the toilet cleaners
> running Sales.

We are not a company.

> So I don't have a clue why in OSM you need to have a
> design guy go through some masonic ritual community introduction

The design guy needs to respect the community or he's not part of it and 
his work will never be accepted.

> (surely this thread is that introduction) before he can have an
> opinion about the logo. And frankly, like balancing a lawyers opinion
> vs. your legal opinion and a designers opinion vs your clipart
> comments, I'm going to pick the lawyer and the designer. For someone
> so bright why you can't see your own limitations is baffling to me.

As I tried to explain above, his work did not meet what I would expect 
from a professional designer. I am speaking as one - tiny - part of this 
designer's client, OSM. Just as if the designer were working for a 
company, he would have to make his client happy. And if that entailed at 
least pretending to know something of the client's business, then that's 
what the designer will do. If the client dislikes the logo he may say 
so, even without having to be able to draw a better logo.

Speaking of being baffled, I am slightly surprised that you seem to be 
so happy with this mediocre logo. Maybe you have seen other works form 
Robert and this lets you conclude he's a good designer. Hell, he may 
even *be* a good designer, he did seem quite sure of himself when he 
popped up here! But based on the merits of this logo submission alone I 
would not be tempted to ask him to do a design makeover for OSM and I am 
surprised that your should view this so differently.

Bye
Frederik

-- 
Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"