You can see my comments on the http://www.rubyinside.com/ page, and I
think I’m certainly not the only one with those sentiments.
In a nutshell: I don’t like it. And I think plenty of people would
have chipped into a funding drive to get someone experienced in brand
design to take care of designing something rather than tossing the
contest out to a bunch of programmers who know very little about
design.
Alas, it’s chosen now, but I’m still open to putting up some money for
another one to be designed, even if it isn’t the “official” one and
merely used by those of us who don’t care for the one chosen.
It looks somewhat okay, but also a bit like a company’s site logo …
And didnt Python have a logo-snake in the past? It looked not good, but
python did put a lot of emphasis on “FUN” … the new webpage looks more
professional, but less “fun”… Anyway that is just my opinion.
(Btw that Python logo has a TM notice while the ruby logo has not, maybe
thats also a different philosophy behind a language? grin)
PS: I actually like the proposed logo. If there is only one aspect I
could change, maybe I would try to make it more crisp/sharper, but I
side on the people that like the logo anyway so it aint important for
me.
PSS: I will put the “official” one on my webpage as link to the ruby
site too
PS: I actually like the proposed logo. If there is only one aspect I
could change, maybe I would try to make it more crisp/sharper, but I
side on the people that like the logo anyway so it aint important for
me.
PSS: I will put the “official” one on my webpage as link to the ruby
site too
Perl’s is not precisely a great logo either. But everybody associates
the camel (and not a pearl) with Perl (after “the Camel” book), so it
works great for Perl, and therefore it’s a great logo (oops, reductio
ad absurdum?
PHP’s, well, it’s simple and does the job. I wonder how it got chosen.
It reminds me the first logo in the URL above.
You can see my comments on the http://www.rubyinside.com/ page, and I
think I’m certainly not the only one with those sentiments.
In a nutshell: I don’t like it. And I think plenty of people would
have chipped into a funding drive to get someone experienced in brand
design to take care of designing something rather than tossing the
contest out to a bunch of programmers who know very little about
design.
FWIW, I announced this contest on a mailing list for Web designers and
developers in the Phoenix, AZ, area. I did not see any reaction, and
have no idea if anyone bothered to submit anything. Too bad.
It may be trickier than imagined to rouse interest and get folks
motivated; some Rails-style hype would have come in handy for this.
There was much more interest when the ruby-lang.org redesign was
underway. Many of the logos produced for that project would make better
choices.
A couple of seconds experimenting with PhotoShop and the Spotlight
filter gave me, what I felt, was a much improved version of the original
design. Maybe the original wasn’t as bad as the saved version. A lot
of programs seem to filter out some of the design when saving it to
anything but it’s native format.
I just thought it best to be frank about it. I’m not a brand design
expert or anything, but I think this logo sort of fails on a number of
levels.
Can I ask you why you’re seeking something other than the gem itself?
Is there a specific need you were wanting to fill with this logo that
it wouldn’t? I didn’t see any sort of information like that anywhere.
“Promotion of Ruby” doesn’t really say much, especially when I think
the gem on its own would probably work for that.
Perl’s is not precisely a great logo either. But everybody associates
the camel (and not a pearl) with Perl (after “the Camel” book), so it
works great for Perl, and therefore it’s a great logo (oops, reductio
ad absurdum?
PHP’s, well, it’s simple and does the job. I wonder how it got chosen.
It reminds me the first logo in the URL above.
Well … there’s the PostgreSQL elephant and the MySQL dolphin. As far
as a logo for Ruby is concerned, I don’t have any strong opinions one
way or another about the new one, except that at first glance, it looked
to me a lot like the Rails logo.
I’m saddened by the outpouring of criticism that this logo has
created. A few thoughts:
It’s hard to unit test a design, because it’s largely subjective.
(This can be one of the most rewarding and frustrating things about
art, for me. You don’t know when you’re ‘done’.) It may be that
different people have different ideas about what makes a good logo.
(Should it be ‘sexy’? Simple? Cutting edge? Retro? Is a simple clear
recognizable favicon important?)
Like open source software, this was an open project. I’m
disappointed that so many people choose to outpour and outcry “THAT
SUCKS, I COULD HAVE DONE BETTER!” If you could have done better, you
should have done so. I feel that this behavior is similar to not
voting in an election and then complaining bitterly about which
candidate won. You could have helped, but you didn’t; you need to
learn to respect those who actually stepped up and tried to help out.
In being saddened by this, it’s important to realize that (a) some
people don’t have the necessarily skills to help create a good icon,
but (b) that doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t have valid
criticisms. As long as the criticism is accurate and clear, it can
prove very useful to improving the end result.[1]
I wish to express my thanks to Tom Schaub (the winner) for his
efforts. Tom, I wish you luck in seeing any valid criticism openly,
and discarding the unhelpful vitriolic easily. I also want to thank
everyone else who made submissions. Finally, I want to thank people
who have clearly conveyed what they don’t like about the logo. ‘Right’
or ‘wrong’, at least you’ve provided something less subjective than
“gag”, or “hideous” or “abortion” or “a joke”. Something that might be
useful in a future iteration or design choice.
I hope that this can be an open, iterative process. I don’t think
that we want the Ruby logo changing monthly, but perhaps once a year
the community can work on and improve the official face of Ruby, if
only slightly, continuously improving the marketing to match the
beauty of the language.
I’m saddened by the outpouring of criticism that this logo has
created. A few thoughts:
Here are a few more thoughts, that I posted as a comment on the Ruby
Inside article:
My initial impression was that it has a nice soft feel to it. Very
welcoming.
I’m not wild about the typography. Simplifying the choices of font
weight, capitalization, size, and alignment would (I think) help the
overall logo tremendously. (Of course, Matz has suggested that it
might often be used without the “Programming Language” bit, which
helps this point.)
Upon reflection and reading these comments, I agree that this
particular logo might not work well (as is) at a small size, or in a
reduced-color representation. I’m not sure if that’s appropriate
criticism. Certainly variations on this logo can be created that both
have strong ties to the original and also work better than it in other
settings. I do not believe the best logo has to work - without
modification - for every purpose.
Yes, it would be nice to have a version of the logo that works in
website bookmarks and is still sort of recognizable. But I don’t want
a 16 color favicon logo as the official branding of Ruby. I want
something better.
Can this logo be improved? Sure. Is it terrible? Definitely not.
Are some of the comments attached to this article insensitive,
unhelpful, and way out of line? I certainly think so.
Fully concur. Also, as a merely practical matter, this logo will be
difficult (and therefore expensive) to print well[1].
It seems to me that you are implying that a good logo should cater to
the lowest common denominator. “Don’t put color in that logo, it won’t
work well when printed on a laser printer! And make sure that all
details are readable at 16x16!”
Obviously my quote takes that to the extreme, and does not directly
represent what you are saying. (You didn’t shout, for one thing.) But
I contend that good branding can consist of multiple flavors of a
design. Soft gradients and drop shadows (as ugh as they may be) for
the web, solid colors for some print, reduced details (beyond just
resizing) for small-size reproduction.
No, we don’t have these in the chosen icon. But that doesn’t mean that
they can’t be created. A few minutes photoshop work (without the
original files, even) can drop out the gradient background and bring
sharper contrast to the gem and words. And I’m not a very good
designer; someone with more skill than I could certainly, I think,
make alternative versions for different, specific, uses rather easily.
I think about well-designed icons, how entire aspects of the design in
a 128x128 icon are slowly removed as you get to smaller and smaller
sizes. Is there any reason the favicon would have to be the bicubic
resampling of the entire icon, instead of just a recognizable subset
of it?
Oddly enough, I thought all of the ones on that page, well, sucked.
They were boring.
I can’t say that the chosen logo “turns me on”, but I think it can be
cleaned up; maybe with a few more black lines to darken the gem;
possibly wash out the red/orange background gradient.
But I don’t think it’s a bad logo at all, and it’s certainly better
than some of the Web 2.0 style logos that I’ve seen touted as
“better”.
Oh, it doesn’t really matter!
Let’s get back to things about code.
How many languages actually have or are known for logos?
Not many really.
No logo will please everyone, and it doesn’t really have to.
It’s not a democratic activity.
We have a very nice language here, that’s what matters.
I especially prefer the image part of the new logo, so we might use
the logo without “programming language” text.
Me too.I like the image part of the new logo too.And,may be see http://www.asiamedia.ucla.edu/article.asp?parentid=44469
If it could be improved as Mikel and Trans expressed, I’d ask the
author to touch up. But…
Hey Matzã•ã‚“
I think a wise person said once “You can’t get anything good out of
group agreement” and the only real strides made have been by
individuals who are willing to put themselves on the line to make
something… like yourself with the great language, Ruby.
Granted, groups can help, and assist to codify and expand. But it is
the individual contributions that moves things forward in every case.
So don’t feel down about any negative comments…
As I said above and Trans has as well, it is not a bad logo at all.
There are some minor things that, if done, could make it a lot better
and really add some punch to it.
Absolutely, the author could touch it up a little. I think if he taks
the professional comments out of all the stupid and inane comments
from the blog, and looks at them, there are only about 3 points which
are repeated which would make the world of difference:
Add saturation to it a bit more to give it a bit more punch -
removes the washed out feeling from it.
Use a sans-serif font that is not common, for some uniqueness -
makes it more modern looking.
Define the gem itself some more.
If the author of the logo got with the person who designed the front
page of www.ruby-lang.org and spent a small amount of time, I am sure
it would come out a lot better.
I would be willing to help… but my photoshop and illustrator skills
are not quite up to it.
On Tue, 2007-10-30 at 18:07 +0900, Yukihiro M. wrote:
Hello All,
As a chairman of the recently formed Ruby Association LLC[1], I
happily announce the result of our Ruby official logo contest.
I changed the logo on Ruby (programming language) - Wikipedia to a non-text
version of the selected logo, identifying the license as CC by-sa 3.0. I
hope no one minds; otherwise, feel free to revert.
Oh, it doesn’t really matter!
Let’s get back to things about code.
How many languages actually have or are known for logos?
Not many really.
No logo will please everyone, and it doesn’t really have to.
It’s not a democratic activity.
We have a very nice language here, that’s what matters.
This reminds me a local Mexican Food resturaunt, “El Patio”. It has a
separate bar room with two signs on the door. The top sign says “Club”
and the bottom smaller sign says “No Minors”.
It has come to be known as “Club No Minors”. In years past, it had a
fancy name and fancy sign, but people kept stealing the sign. What
endures is the bar, not the name. With Ruby what will endure is the
language, not the logo.
On Oct 31, 2007, at 6:28 AM, Arlen Christian Mart C. wrote:
Ruby (programming language) - Wikipedia to a non-text
version of the selected logo, identifying the license as CC by-sa
3.0. I
hope no one minds; otherwise, feel free to revert.
Arlen
Arlen, it looks like you adjusted the logo a bit. Colors are more
saturated. Contrast is higher.
