RE: [boost] Logo Contest

From: Mark Blewett (boost_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-03-09 21:57:37

At 01:57 10/03/2005, you wrote:

Firstly there are a lot of things I agree with you in your previous post... 
and was responding to it because it was (I feel) it is good starting point 
(because it summarized a lot of my concerns) to make the comments to the 
list as a whole that I felt needed making, not against your own post... 
perhaps I should of been clearer about that.

Unfortunately with a brief scan of your response.. your interpretation of 
my post maybe different, I guess I have a lot to learn about posting 
"correctly" here.

>My personal take is that it says "safety" to an industry that's anything but
>predictable.  Which isn't to denigrate it.  I like blue.  Got blue color
>schemes on all my machines (or teal, which is close).  It just seemed that
>no one had given it any thought,

That's what I'm trying to say.. (ok doing it badly)... about getting the 
basics (things like colour / font / capitalization) sorted.. however 
perhaps these will come out in post selection changes.

>and I was trying to, well, *goose* people a
>bit, maybe get someone to try something else.  If you noticed it as it
>breezed past and sank, my one early attempt was blue, and I thought at that
>time (seem to recall some posts that made me think that) we were supposed to
>keep the old color, to minimize collateral changes to color in the page
>content.

I guess most of use like stability.. which is strange given the innovative 
libraries in boost.

>As for "targeting the audience," I harbor a deep suspicion that just because
>coders work with text doesn't mean they'll necessarily *respond* positively
>to it.  Sadly, I have a wee bit of experience to tell me that (don't ask,
>don't tell <g>).  For one thing, yeah, we're working in a text medium, but I
>don't really think the bulk of us are really all that language-oriented.

That's actually a very good observation! I'd been thinking of the day to 
day textual side.. not thinking of what goes on inside the mind.

>I'd wager that better than 95% of the people who track this list are male
>(which I do *not* say to belittle women, or even to suggest that the logo
>should just target males--I'm just talking numbers),

Unfortunately its the world we live in :o(

>which dictates a pretty
>strong statistical leaning towards problem-solving techniques based on some
>form of physical visualization.  (About to commit the sin of generalizing
>from a single particular, but...) I'm about as language-oriented as it goes,
>with an advanced degree in writing and Lit, but when I code, I *picture*
>things.  Abstract patterns of colored blocks, actually.  It's subtle, but
>there.  Now, after all that disquisition, I'll observe that a text logo can
>work.  Good ones are pretty hard to do, but you can think of some if you
>try.  However, apart from IBM, can you really think of many others?  Look
>closely at HP's logo, or Motorola's, any of that ilk, and you'll see there's
>a graphic component even to them.  Hell, there's one to IBM's.  Check out
>what their trademark actually is.  Block serif lettering in a particular
>shade of blue, broken by horizontal drop-outs.  Hmmmn.  I'm looking at the
>Dell logo on my monitor;  not sure what it means to do.  Looks like it's got
>"lazy E syndrome." <g>  It may be that a large percentage of the submissions
>are text-based simply because that's the first idea anyone will have, on
>average.

I think you are right about the submissions, and right that perhaps (if I 
understand you correctly) an abstract logo is a better way to go.

>I would say that, yes you *do* need to be thinking about all those
>foundations, if you expect to get it trademarked, because anything not
>explicitly specified in the description will *not* be considered part of the
>trademark.  You also have to be careful not to over-constrain the
>definition, or you can arrive at situations where you can't claim copyright
>protection for certain usages.  For instance, a logo I once did (still think
>it's my best) for a rock band was largely defined by a geometric pattern
>that surrounded and dominated the opening capital of the band's name.  There
>was also a backdrop done in a flame scheme by airbrush, and I'd designed a
>custom font for the name that echoed patterns in the geometric figure.  The
>description finally filed mentioned only the figure and the name.  Including
>the font would have forced the band to always use only that font.  Likewise
>the backdrop; that logo had to appear on a number of things, and lots of
>them wouldn't have been conducive to having a lot of deep saturated reds,
>oranges, and yellows on them.  I'm speaking of US trademark law, of course.
>I don't know the conventions in other countries.  But yeah, I do think of
>this process as "establishing a brand," in the full commercial sense.

That's one of the thinks I was questioning in my head.. what's a logo.. why 
is a new one needed.. what I personally came back to each time was actually 
we are trying to establish a brand.. and that the logo is just part of it. 
Maybe my interpretation as a causal observer is wrong.

>Were
>I at liberty to drop names, I could tell you a tale of a company that
>neglected to trademark a very important part of what had come to be a
>long-established and well-known brand, and their main competitor simply
>appropriated it for their own advertising, undoubtedly luring customers who
>associated that very key thing with the wrong company.  But I ain't.  And I
>ain'ta gonna.  <g>  Okay, Boost isn't a "company" in the traditional sense.
>But it's got to work with laws designed for corporate protection, and that
>means really working with them.

That's an interesting comment, one which I'd never of thought of... has anyone?

>Yeah, it's personal.  Since Boost isn't a company I "own" or do branding for
>though, I'm not emotional about it.  If it's seemed that way, I apologize
>for the impression I managed to import into my messages.

Sorry what I meant was the choice of logo is personal and emotive to 
everyone here.. everyone has their own reasons, its not (as) logical like 
voting for a library submission.

>And yep,
>discussion is the key.  Which is what we're doing, I thought.  <g>

Yeah.. and you have made me think of a few areas, problems, and ideas which 
I hadn't even considered before.

Thanks!

Regards
Mark