[Mageia-discuss] Artwork - Mageia Logo contest

Remy CLOUARD shikamaru at mandriva.org
Fri Sep 24 23:33:18 CEST 2010


On Thu, Sep 23, 2010 at 03:13:02PM +0300, Mihai Dobrescu wrote:
> Indeed, a relation to the Mandriva is desirable to be avoided, IMHO. Not
> because I hate or even dislike Mandriva. Just something fresh is needed.
> This is, I guess, one of the success components of re-branding in the life
> of any product.
> 
> I have not enough skills to draw (I will try though), but I propose some
> logos, based on Mageia's meaning, but a bit derived:
> - a black cat (+ some black stars instead of eyes' pupils, alternately)
> - cat's eye or eyes (+ some black stars instead of eyes' pupils,
> alternately)
> - an owl ((+ some black stars instead of eyes' pupils, alternately)
> - any of these above in the Moon (on the Moon's horn)
> - an orb (my preferred) (in Edgar Allan Poe's stories the orb is a link,
> like a screen - the monitor -, to other worlds ;) )
> 
> What do you think?
Let me put my 2 cents here :)

All the above terms evoke nothing for me. They’re just lexically linked
to magic, superstition or something like that.

The first word that come to mind when I think of Mageia is community.
Community evokes other terms for me : friendship, open minds, share,
doing something together, that’s to say terms that evoke exchange
between people.

Luckily enough, the first lettre of Mageia is an M which can be
stretched enough to look like a man. If I think of friendship, I think
of the “emoticon” \o/, meaning you’re happy to see someone and welcome
him.

This started as a base for a logo. I personnally like simple logos think
of the M of McDonalds for instance.

And this is the result :

http://www.flickr.com/photos/54217230@N05/5021464618/in/pool-1491252@N24/

Black and white version :

http://www.flickr.com/photos/54217230@N05/5021464608/in/pool-1491252@N24/

When I first looked at it again, it made me think of this picture :
http://www.asdfing.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/facts_about_leonardo_da_vinci.jpg

I find this evocation very positive, it reminds the age of
enlightenment, I hope it’s not negative to some people, but the idea I
keep is the progress of human knowledge about life the universe and
everything (sorry for the reference :p)

The nice thing is that it scales very well, even at small sizes (16 px
still looks good)

Now, here are some guidelines to use it :
Leave at least half the diameter of the circle around the logo, don’t
put anything in this zone. The logo itself is blue, so it should not be
put on a blue or red background, the contrast will be either too small
or too sharp.

The logo shall not be stretched, either vertically or horizontally.

If you want to print it on paper, the logo should not exceed 1/5 of the
width/height of the paper

The font used there is simply bitstream vera sans, except for the M and
the g, which has been a bit customized to remind a lowercase gamma (γ).

Other letters are greeks alpha, iota, and epsilon. They’re not so
different from their latin counterpart and look more elegant IMHO.

Only 3 colours are used in the colour version: 2 variants of dark blue,
and white.

I’m no design expert, and did not want to customize it too much, in the
hope it could serve as a base for other logos. I didn’t use many colours
either so that we can change it, if we decide this colour does not fit.

Unfortunately, as it is very simple in its design, I fear there is a
high chance that a similar logo exists as well, sorry if it’s the case

I hope you like this idea, feedback would be very welcome :)

Best regards,
-- 
Rémy CLOUARD
() ascii ribbon campaign - against html e-mail
/\ www.asciiribbon.org - against proprietary attachments
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