[Mageia-discuss] Artwork - Mageia Logo contest

[R James]

On Fri, Sep 24, 2010 at 4:33 PM, Remy CLOUARD <shikamaru at mandriva.org> wrote:
> 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 :)

Nice logo Remy!  :o)

One trivia question:  Do the darkened hands (but not feet) outside of
the circle represent something?