Logos, Branding and Marketing
Hi folks,
First off, Bernelle, thanks for your efforts on brainstorming a logo. I
think it's been a great help in getting the creative juices flowing.
Before we travel too far down the logo road, I just want to back up a
little and tell you guys a little bit about branding and logos.
Bernelle's designer friend highlighted branding, and I just want to
expand a little on what it is and what it means in relation to other
things like logos and marketing materials. My apologies if you already
know this, I just want us all to be on the same page. If you don't
understand any of it either, please feel free to ask for further
explanation.
Branding, in essence, is our identity. It's the colours, font, logo(s),
images, motto and everything else we use that makes DebConf16 stand out
from everything else. One of the key components of branding is
consistency. This is why so many companies have branding guidelines (or
even rules!) - it defines them in the public eye - wherever you see them
you know who they are.
In terms of colours, ideally we need to have 3 main colours:
- A single primary colour. This is the colour we use everywhere,
dominant in our logo, on our web site and on any other materials about
DebConf16.
- Two secondary colours. These colours should compliment the primary
colour, and are used to add variance.
* To link back to Debian, I'd probably use Debian red as one of the
secondary colours.
A definitive font is also part of our branding, something that looks
smart and kinda sets us apart. We could use the font suggested by
previous DebConf teams (the one I have on the test site at the moment -
when it actually loads), so that it links us back to DebConf - I
personally think it's fine - or we could choose something else. This
font also needs to be used everywhere, so as to establish our brand.
In terms of logo, we actually need two logos:
- "Square" picture logo used for icons, buttons, and anywhere else
where space is confined
- A bigger, longer "text" logo, which consists of the picture logo plus
"DebConf16 Cape Town" and whatever motto or other text we want to add
(in our chosen font, of course).
A good example of this dual-logo is Debian's own logo. The swirl is the
main picture logo, and then the swirl with the world "debian" is the
bigger "text" logo.
The website, of course, is an extension of all of the above. Especially
in Debian's online context, it's what really drives our brand home.
Thanks to web fonts, we can even make sure our site uses the right font
in everyone's browsers (except maybe lynx/links ;-) ).
I've listed the above items in a specific order. This is the order we
should be deciding things. First, work on our colours, then choose a
font, then work on a logo, and then lastly pull the web site together.
I hope this helps! See you all later.
--
Raoul Snyman
e: raoul@snyman.info
Please note that my e-mail address has changed!
Reply to: