[OSM-talk] new logo

[SteveC]

On May 16, 2010, at 9:47 PM, M∡rtin Koppenhoefer wrote:
> 2010/5/16 SteveC <steve at asklater.com>:
>> As for why this is better, anyone who has printed t-shirts, conference material or worked in branding will tell you, as I already have that the current logo:
>> 
>> * has too many colours
>> * doesn't scale
>> * is too busy
>> * isn't brandable to a colour scheme
>> 
>> This isn't opinion, it's just basic design facts.
> 
> 
> while this is all true, it doesn't imply that to design a new logo we
> must completely throw the current design away.

Yes and no. On the one hand as I said, there hasn't been a clamoring to actually get it changed whereas Robert has talent, time and clearly the energy. That's really most of what I need to say 'okay fine go do it'.

On the other, I'm not a big fan of evolution. I prefer revolution or innovation. You couldn't sort of extrapolate forward from a GIS system to OSM. You couldn't extrapolate from crappy Nokia phones forward to the iPhone (without hindsight, of course). So I prefer a rethink and something bold and new. Yes you could take the existing logo and just make it red or something, but that's just not nearly as appealing as changing it fundamentally because there's a sea of other ideas out there that are worth looking at.

Yours &c.

Steve

> I think that the old
> logo is quite good at pointing out what OSM is about (for a part,
> sparing out the collaborative aspect, but still the "data and not map
> or poi"-aspect is important). I would expect from a new logo to be
> 1 individual and unique
> 2 meet all the technical and graphical requirements for a logo
> 3 tell a story / symbolize the idea of OSM
> 4 possibly maintain some continuity with the current logo (ideally the
> new logo would be some progress of the old one)
> 
> the proposed design is working only for point 2 but has nothing to do with OSM.
> 
> cheers,
> Martin
>