[Pydotorg-redesign] Re: [marketing-python] logos

[Magnus Lyckå]

At 17:15 2003-08-16 -0700, Oktay Safak wrote:
>Be patient, we are working on both issues. We just need some time. It will
>be a big change and I wouldn't like to see it rushed. If we'll change it, we
>need to get it right. Some food for thought:
>
>http://www.geocities.com/oktay_safak/python.jpg
>
>http://pollenation.net/assets/public/python-logo-test.gif
>
>http://pollenation.net/assets/public/python8.gif
>http://pollenation.net/assets/public/python1.gif
>http://pollenation.net/assets/public/python5.gif
>
>I'd love to hear your comments on them.

None of them really caught my attention or seem like an
improvement, but I'm no pro in the field. Is any of them
made by someone who has an arts or design education, or
works as a graphics design professional?

I think the first thing to consider when making a logotype
is what values and messages we want to convey with it.
What do we want people to feel when they see the logo? This
will narrow down the choices of color, shape and font quite
a bit...and made correctly, a logo will convey a message.

Those Python logos said nothing to me. Why so grey? Is dull
and boring the main message?

Do we want people to feel desire, or trust? Do we want to give
an impression of high quality or hitech or speed or what? I
think we have to decide what factor is most important and do
the most of that. How do we say: "Developing with Python takes
less time" in our logo?

Frankly, I think the name "Python" is a liability. (Not that
there is a lot we can do about that now.) If someone asks me
to compare Python and Ruby, I'll immediately admit that that
other language has a more sellable name, particularly in Sweden
where "tastes python" means "tastes like shit". Maybe we should
still try to make the best of that though. It could work.

Agility, surprising power, not the fastest creature out there,
but faster than one might imagine, and really flexible and big
enough to get around big obstacles. Hm...this seems more like
a TV commercial than a logo... (Although, when I've seen pythons
in real life, they almost always just lie there and do nothing...
Hm...)

>Note that Guido has killed the
>spiral and the infinity symbol ideas though.

Good! We have a programming language called Python. Although
the name has an origin that is related to Monty Python and not
to snakes, the obvious choice *if* we want some kind of symbol
would be (like the Python icons in Windows) to use the snake.

I realize that both the spiral and the infinity symbol could be
seen as an abstract image of a snake, but it's too far fetched.
People who see a spiral or infinity symbol won't think: "Aha,
a snake, it's about Python." It's one thing if there is a little
snake that coils into an infinity symbol, but what's the message?
Python programs take forever to finish? What would the spiral
stand for? Goes round and round a long time before it reaches the
goal?

I'm not at all sure we want some kind of symbol or icon like
that in the logo at all. Making something distinctive graphic
out of the letters P-y-t-h-o-n like we have today is probably
a really good idea.

Look at the pros: Volvo, Ford, IBM, HP, LEGO, Amazon, Microsoft
etc. Almost all of them have just the plain text and some fairly
simple (but probably very expensive to come up with) decoration
or little detail in or around the text.

When there is something non-textual (Audi and Saab for instance)
it's often a logo which was developed many decades ago that is
still being used, since it's just a strongly rooted symbol in the
public mind. Some (like Volvo) have even dropped the old symbol
and reverted to plain text.

Asian car companies (Mazda, Hyundai, Toyota etc) often use symbols
these days since they must be recognized by people who don't use
the latin alphabet. That's not really relevant for us, since Python
is useless for people who don't type with the latin alphabet...

Don't underestimate the value of text as graphics. My son loved cars
when he was one and a half years old. He knew more than half a dozen
brands, and if you asked "Where's the Ford?" on a parking lot, he'd
walk over to the closest Ford, put his finger on the logo, and say
"Huh!" which was about all his vocabulary allowed by then. When he
was a little over two, I was once reading in a newspaper while he was
present, and suddenly he poked his finger in the text and said "Toyota".
Quite to my surprise, he had his finger on the word "Toyota". There
were no pictures, no logos, just a full page of plain, normal 10 pt text.
But "Toyota" looked close enough to "TOYOTA" which was a logotype he
recognized (from older Toyotas). To him, this was just a picture. He
still can't read two years later, but words are pictures too. Some of
these pictures are well known to him, and convey very clear messages.

There is so much a pro can do with text. The VOLVO logo gives a very
clear image of the values Volvo stands for. Safe, solid, trustworthy and
a little boring. There is no way you can add "sporty like a Ferrari" to
the image of the logo, and keep the other values. Ford makes a point of
keeping an old-fashioned logo, giving the message that "hey, we more or
less invented the entire concept of a car".

Introducing little figures is a difficult and dangerous task. If you just
knew how much grief the Ericsson marketing people have had with their
stylized E, consisting of three parallel, rounded bars. They even had to
send out internal memos forbidding employees to answer the phone saying
"Three hotdogs" instead of "Ericsson".


--
Magnus Lycka (It's really Lyckå), magnus at thinkware.se
Thinkware AB, Sweden, www.thinkware.se
I code Python ~ The Agile Programming Language