Marinating my brain on Fedora.next logos


Yep. Here’s a snapshot.
fedora-next.3
Inkscape SVG Source
This is the design methodology of, ‘throw a bunch of things at the wall and see what sticks.’

26 Comments

  1. I’ve liked all the iterations of the design(s) thus far, in each of this and the past posts. My favorites so far are the D Workstation and the D Cloud. I prefer the C Server. I prefer the Fedora blue color for each icon. All of this makes me want to fire up inkscape and play with the ideas. less to make a proposal than to have fun with the idea of representing cloud, server and workstation with a simple image.

  2. Unsure about server, but D orange is (IMHO) best for workstation?
    If pushed, C1 for server
    ? How about a ‘childs’ symbol for cloud? Lettering seems wrong for i18N reasons?

    1. mairin says:

      Yeh, good point on the letter-based ones. I agree, it wouldn’t work well considering i18n.
      What do you mean by child’s symbol? Have an example?

      1. Childs symbol…. flat line base, three semi-circular ‘bumps’ rising, on the top, connect back to base = cloud (weather map idea?)
        Now why doesn’t this pencil work on my screen!

  3. Both C & D look nice. The nice things about C is that they all look similar which would be better for Fedora Branding.

  4. ryanplusplus says:

    C feels right

  5. I think that logo abstraction is a difficult job and you are moving forward. I just want to share my opinions, which probably are wrong because peach is a fruit to me and not a color.
    I like better “C”. I do like the way server look square and staked and cloud are a bit rounded.
    In second place is “D”. Server is not bad. Never really tried boxes, I always use KVM. Workstation probably need more buttons to convey keyboard idea. Two rows of five dots smaller to fit under the screen, perhaps? Cloud is weird to me. I instantly remembered the poster’s movie evolution with a three eyed yellow happy face. Probably is that bar that looks like a upset mouth and the fact that is the only one round.
    Again, it is easy to me to criticise what you hanged on the wall with hard work. I hope that helped a bit on the sticking on the wall process.

  6. William Moreno says:

    I like de “C” 🙂

  7. I like what you’ve done with Server and Cloud in “C” — it nicely captures horizontal vs. vertical scaling.

  8. Máirín! First, thanks for working out in the open and starting this discussion.
    I’d like to make a bold suggestion: I don’t think the 3 products need distinct logos at all.
    We spend a lot of time involved with Fedora. We think of these products as “Workstation”, “Server” and “Cloud”; we assume “Fedora” without any context. But for most people, just one of these products is going to be “Fedora”.
    If we have very distinct logos for each product, I predict that the Workstation logo will become more associated with Fedora than the Fedora logo, assuming Workstation is still our primary product. (cf Mozilla retiring the dino.)
    So I think we should focus strongly on the “Fedora”, and much less on the “$product”. In these suggestions, I can barely see the “ƒ”s!
    So far, almost all of your suggestions have used the same wordmark, as in D here. Go with that! Even better, reduce the product name’s size, so that its caps-height matches the x-height of “fedora” — focus on “Fedora”.
    As an example of this approach, Ubuntu has three separate products: desktop, server and phone. They all share one logo, without even a different wordmark. However, they brand their material for each audience by using a different mix of colours and patterns: http://design.ubuntu.com/audiences
    We already have distinct colours for the four “F”s; perhaps we could repurpose these for our products?

    1. If we have very distinct logos for each product, I predict that the Workstation logo will become more associated with Fedora than the Fedora logo, assuming Workstation is still our primary product. (cf Mozilla retiring the dino.)
      Greg, breaking the assumption that Fedora is only or primarily a desktop OS is one of the big things we want to do. Desktop (and particularly the “workstation” focus) is important, but being tied to that holds us back in other areas. Given that, if we turn your assumption around, I think what you are saying tells me that having three distinct (but related) logos is exactly the right track.

      1. I sort of agree with Greg’s assessment on how Ubuntu has branded itself. Ubuntu’s extreme popularity in consumer space as a desktop product, for various obvious reasons, has made it a popular choice for anything including server and cloud. In the same way, along with strong technical core, Fedora needs a strong branding which easy for eyes to recognize and easy for tongue to roll. The Ubuntu human circle is hard to miss. I think the F in current logo is a strong symbol. We need something in that line and not something which makes you think in crammed internet what does this symbol mean and let me focus and read what it says in 2-3 words.
        But Mairin and you obviously know better I am just a Fedora ‘KDE’ Desktop user. Thank you for making what Fedora is today.

        1. mairin says:

          Are you suggesting using the Fedora ‘f’ without the infinity / bubble marks? I don’t think that’s a good approach simply bc – even tho it’s older – it gets confused with the facebook logomark / icon. It is a pretty weak symbol bc of that, unfortunately.

          1. No, I am rooting for something that strongly represents F instead of generic symbol of cloud, server and desktop.

          2. mairin says:

            I think you’re really misunderstanding the context of the logos here. They are submarks under Fedora…. they are not meant to be used in isolation and will always be used in the presence of a general Fedora mark. If you have questions about the context the marks will be used in, please feel free to ask… that tends to help generate more mutually productive feedback than making assumptions would if you understand what I’m saying. I should have made the context point a bit clearer up front for sure. The Fedora logo is not going anywhere.

  9. A and B look really nice to me just looking at each one in isolation, but looked at together they kind of come off as too similar to each other, perhaps? I think along with a lot of the other commenters I really like C. Could you make the ‘cloud’ one look a bit more like:
    |
    |||
    though? i.e. the bars on the left and right a bit lower than the one in the middle, just to invoke the shape of a cloud a bit? My immediate reaction to how it looks now was ‘radiator’, in fact (though I still think it works fine).

  10. John says:

    I would like to see the plymouth theme in Fedora 21 workstation use the new logo

  11. Jonatan says:

    The Montserrat font looks really nice. It feels professional and makes for an interesting contrast to the more playful Fedora font. Maybe combining colour and the pixelated/textured look would work, as in a combination of your ideas B and D?
    http://keepyourhead.tumblr.com/image/87645354048

  12. Like a lot of people I really like the C logos in general. The cloud abstraction doesn’t spring out at me with the idea of “cloud,” but having sat down to try and draw a very simple icon myself with pen and paper, I found it really difficult! Everything came out looking like either a cactus or a Playskool My First Oil Refinery. 😀
    The server and workstation icons on the other hand not only bring exactly those use cases to mind, but they’re beautifully simplistic. Great job.

  13. […] ← Marinating my brain on Fedora.next logos […]

  14. Cory Hilliard says:

    The colouring for C is awesome. I would play around with the icons though, they aren’t sitting well with me right now.

  15. Dragnucs says:

    The D set is good but I suggest that the cloud icon should have the similar shape to others. Also, it maybe a good idea to have some background patterns on them. You know, those cool triangle patterns you made on other round icons orthe ones on fedora desktop background.

  16. bill says:

    I don’t like A or B too much. The letters are too big and the outer shapes are too weird.
    I like the C colors (one look at them and I am already thinking “Fedora”), and D is okay, although the colors don’t mean anything (to me). I wonder what the D icons would look in side the C background?

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