[Mageia-dev] Art, Logo and Branding

[Marc Paré]

I think in the grand scheme of things, we should all acknowledge that 
should the name "Mageia" not work, that a name change would be a 
possibility, just as a logo change is still a possibility. We have seen 
this from many OSS firms who went through this process.

We should be careful in making the distro too "cottagey" or "home grown" 
in looks and flavour. I would suggest that the long term vision for the 
distro also include a commercial aspect. There should be a community 
driven distro and a commercial distro (read server). If we organise 
under these terms, then the choice of name, logo and branding changes.

A name and logo for the Mageia project should exude a community spirit 
as well a professional corporate spirit. Would a business have a problem 
repeating "We use the Mageia distro to run our servers and our 
desktops."? I personally think that the name is solid in this case, 
whether for community or corporate use. Side note: I prefer the "soft g" 
sound of the name --- " Mah jay ah " (more like the French "j'ai" sound) 
-- it sounds classy.

So, the logo should then follow suit and exude the same feeling. It 
should reflect both a feeling of community as well as bear the scrutiny 
of corporate world. Would they feel confident in hanging our shingle 
(read logo) on their website's front page? I too tend to sway more 
towards the simple logo concept. I don't personally think that a magic 
wand would not work in a corporate setting, this would then limit it's 
use. We would then have to adopt a corporate logo. I am not sure if this 
would make good sense as, in a way, we would then be fragmenting the 
distro. A solid logo for both, in my opinion, would make the most sense.

Marc