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Re: Debian redesign



Hi,

(please don't CC me)

On Tue, 4 Aug 2009 00:06:46 +0100
Roger Leigh <rleigh@codelibre.net> wrote:

> On Mon, Aug 03, 2009 at 10:28:33PM +0200, Harald Braumann wrote:
> > I must say, I like the current swirl and I would miss it. But then
> > I'm maybe just conservative. I never understood the sense of
> > re-branding, re-naming, re-designing everything just for the sake
> > of it.
> 
> I don't know, while the swirl is familiar and everything, there's
> nothing in it that really jumps out at me and says that's a really
> great logo that captures what Debian is in the same sense that
> (off the top of my head) the VMware (in particular) or
> RedHat/SuSE/FreeBSD logos do.  

Let's see:
VMware: I had to go to their web site to be reminded of their logo. And
if I would see it without the vmware wording, I probably wouldn't
recognise it.
RedHat: well that's easy. But the name Debian doesn't mean anything. If
you want smth. similar, you'd have to use pictures of Debra and Ian ;)
SuSE: how does a chameleon capture what SuSE is?
FreeBSD: Granted, Beastie is cool. But the new abstract logo is also
only recognisable, if you know where it came from.

The conclusion is: most logos are abstractions, and while they might
have had an original meaning, this meaning is usually lost if you don't
know the history. They become a symbol that stands for the brand
itself. Compare e.g. the Adidas stripes: they don't have any meaning of
their own, but everyone knows, it's Adidas. So I wouldn't try too hard
to create a logo that has some meaning of its own.

Somehow you have to implant the connection logo-brand into the
peoples' brains. And as Debian probably doesn't have the advertisement
budget of Adidas, this process is much slower. Thus it's important to
keep the logo for a long time. If you change it, you have to start all
over again

> There are a lot of similar swirl logos
> around which look awfully similar (some even having strangely similar
> spiky bits; the last one I saw was on a bottle of drinking water but
> in silver rather than red).

True. If you put the Debian swirl anywhere, no one would know it's
Debian. But if you put it in some IT-context, it's quite unique.

> I really liked the personality of the "Debian chicken", though it
> wouldn't have hurt to redraw it nicely.  Maybe a bit Linux-specific
> though.
> 
> I also really liked the black and white GNU + penguin on the old
> Apache default index page with the proud and mighty Gnu looking down
> gravely towards the small upstart Penguin!

I don't know if its just me, but IMO animals as logos always look a bit
stupid and childish.

Cheers,
harry

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