Last week I shared a concept for the Fedora.next logos with you, and I received quite a lot of feedback. Thank you for that. 🙂 The feedback I received mostly clustered along these lines in some form or another:
- The server logomark doesn’t read as a server to everyone – it’s too rounded.
- The workstation logomark looks too much like a flip phone to read as a laptop.
Okay. I thought I might take that feedback and fart around with the designs some more, and record a bit of a stream of consciousness of what the heck I did so you can follow along and see where it’s coming from. I opened up the SVG source of the original designs in Inkscape and poked around a bit.
Making the server more… server-y?
So the thing is, the initial stab at this concept here was made using minimally modified versions of the Fedora logo bubble. That’s why the rounding was so extreme. So for server, it was pretty simple to just tone down the rounding, and I think it reads better, if not as ideally as it should.
More cowbell for the workstation
This one required a bit more iteration.
As with the server, the first step was to decrease the rounding so the edges of the shapes were more square (save for one corner, to try to keep a bit of unity with the other logotypes as well as link back to the main Fedora logo.) I actually quite prefer C2, but when it’s lined up with the other Fedora.next product logos, it’s much taller so it doesn’t hang toegther with the set as well. This maybe isn’t a huge problem, but having a similar basic shape across the product logos would definitely make life easier down the line (eg, being able to plug the logos into similar templates for web or print without having to modify the template to fit the taller logo.) Anyway. With this one, I fiddled around a lot to make sure there was a nice curvy negative space on the right side of the ‘laptop,’ to fit in with the Fedora logo-y feel. Too tall, though.
Okay, so on to the next iteration, C3, slimmed down the height of the screen and keyboard and pulled the two shapes closer together. The font was scaled down just a little bit as well. It still kind of has a weird look – I mean, it’s stylized in a way that hangs with the others, but I wanted to see if I could get something a bit more like a traditional laptop shape.
C4 is the next iteration then. It’s pretty much just C3 but the angling is changed to emulate a laptop. The overall styling across these logo marks is flat components layered on top of one another with shadows, like paper cutouts or something. I don’t know if skewing the shapes to indicate a sense of perspective like this breaks the look. It’s just an idea, anyway.
Iteration 2 compared to Iteration 1
Okay, so here’s the before and after, showing the logos from
last week and this iteration.
These are just mockups. More work needed. 🙂
These are all just iterations on the same concept though. There’s certainly room for other concepts for the logos here; I’m hoping to see at least another one for us to evaluate before we settle on anything.
Your ideas are welcome!
Ryan posted his iterations on the Cloud logo today – which is totally awesome, and I hope serves as further invitation for you to post your own iterations and ideas for these logos. They are more than welcome!!
Also, my bad. Seriously.
I forgot to post the link to my sources, which Ryan pointed out when he wanted to start working on a logo iteration. Here they are:
- Concept 1: First logo iteration (Inkscape SVG, ~500k)
- Concept 2: Second logo iteration (this one) (Inkscape SVG, ~600k)
Now if you want to poke around with this design, you can more easily. Of course, it’s totally cool to just throw this idea out the window and start fresh with something else.
This made my day – maybe it’ll make yours, too.
Greg DeKonigsberg posted a link to these kids – apparently around 9 years old – that cover Rammstein, among other things. Their YouTube channel is awesome. Here they are covering Rammstein’s Alter Mann. This has nothing to do with Fedora logos. But neither do pandas.
Máirín Duffy: Iterating on Fedora.NEXT Brand Concept #1:
Last week I shared a concept for the Fedor… http://t.co/4kBSYEGNjm #LinuxNov
Máirín Duffy: Iterating on Fedora.NEXT Brand Concept #1 http://t.co/mpzLMDXezg
Máirín Duffy: Iterating on Fedora.NEXT Brand Concept #1 http://t.co/O0AuR5DFaX
I think the part of the logo easier to relate with fedora, is the “F” letter.
What you think about put the F in one of the bubbles by logo?
By example, in the desktop, can be in the screen bubble.
Probably don’t work with the text over the logo, but the text over the logo don’t look ok neither.
Just two cents, I like the work you are doing, and specially the open way to share all the process.
Going the same way a “fedory” F letter could be added to cloud logo as well. Iteration 2 looks best to me as the logos differ more as in cloud logo looks like clouds and server logo looks like server racks while the server logo from iteration 1 looks too much like cloud logo 😉
#Fedora.NEXT brend koncept #1 – nove verzije http://t.co/LDjUcAr8Pk
Iterating on Fedora.NEXT Brand Concept #1 http://t.co/OSSTFGcF5G #fedora #gnu #linux #redhat #branding
Iterating on Fedora.NEXT Brand Concept #1 http://t.co/t2JYLg3rpB
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