[ocaml-biz] big O logos

[Olivier Grisel]

Brandon J. Van Every a ?crit :
> As far as the 'doing things with camels' approach goes, I think the big
> round 'O' with a camel silhouette in it is a perfectly good design
> direction to go in.  I don't think this specific logo will do, however.
> It seems 'too natural, too friendly' and I honestly can't see it
> competing with the likes of Oracle or .NET or any of the other big
> business enterprise players.  An "O with a camel in it" logo would need
> to be more slick and probably more abstract.  Think of the AT&T 'Death
> Star' logo, for instance.

I don't think being "too friendly" is a disadvantage especially for an 
open source project. Look at Tux the penguin for instance: its 
friendliness doesn't prevent Linux to be a leading competitor on the OS 
market. In my opinion, the AT&T logo is not that good (I could not even 
remember it).

> To say more, I'd have to get out my sketchbook and try some things.  I'm
> not quite ready to do that yet, I'm still in "define the message" mode.
> That said, I envision a black 'O' with a camel as the whitespace, the
> center of the 'O'.

Ok, I have added a new black and white version. It's not exactly what 
you requested, but it's a first draft:

   http://champi.champiland.homelinux.org/~olivier/ocaml-logos.html

I will try the white camel in the next version.

> Another comment, about your font treatment.  The yellow letters and
> their shapes are awfully reminiscent of R.J.Reynolds Tobacco's
> marketing.  That's a negative.  We need a brand identity that doesn't
> resemble a cigarette.

Yes, but that's because yellow/orange is the natural color for camels 
and sandy deserts. I can't hardly imagine a pink nor a blue camel :o)
Although I have seen the cowparade in Stockholm last month and it was 
very nice: http://stockholm.cowparade.com/
We need a camelparade. :o)

> I think we should submit at least 2 prototypical logo concepts to INRIA.
> One along the lines of "an O with a camel in it," and another along the
> lines of cams, cogs, and machines.  That way, we see what kind of
> connotation INRIA is willing to put its weight behind.  Also if they
> have options they get to reject something.  It's very important to let
> clients reject something, it makes them feel powerful and important.
> The idea they keep is 'their' idea, 'because they rejected something'.

I will try to draw something with cogs and cams for my next attempt and 
see what happens.

> In other words, as we design logos with different major strategic
> directions, we have to be fully prepared that one or more of us is going
> to lose.  There Can Be Only One.

Yes but that's not such a great deal! I don't really mind if people 
reject my drawings, but I would surely appreciate if the community use 
one of them :o) But I agree offering several choices to people is the 
way to go. Organising a contest and community driven vote like the 
mozilla sunbird did[1] might be a good way to get great results, 
although the OCaml community is probably much smaller than the Mozilla's 
community.

[1] http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=85054

> On the subject of cams, cogs, and gears, I'm seeing a big 'O' with a
> smaller gear inside it.  Maybe the big 'O' is internally toothed.
> Possibly a big 'O' is the right design direction for either case,
> whether camels or cogs.  It's just a question of what the inside of the
> 'O' should look like.

Yes, I was planning to give a try to something like that (the internally 
toothed big 'O' with additional cams and cogs inside).

Best

--
Olivier
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