[Social-mediagoblin] GNU MediaGoblin logo designs and color choices

[Jef van Schendel]

Hi all,

Two things I'd like to talk about... First up: a logo.

I've been doodling a bunch of things, trying to find a logo for the
project. As a refresher, here's what generally makes a good logo. It
could be anything, really, there are no set rules, but these are often
mentioned:

1. It's recognizable. Something unique yet simple is often preferred.
2. Its personality and look should match the style and work of the
thing it represents. Not a strict rule, but it's clear why this is
desirable.
3. It's scalable. Obviously it should work for a range of sizes, from
tiny to huge. Using a vector image is the least you can do, but you
should also be wary of very small details.
4. It works with and without color. Meaning one should be able to turn
it black-and-white and it would still work.

So here's something I worked on today:

http://schendje.fedorapeople.org/goblin/logoTest2.png

(As usual, sources can be found in the same folder.)

Personally, I quite like the one on the bottom right. What I tried to
do was create something that shows both "a piece of media" (so in this
case, it kind of looks like a photo/video frame) and an eye that's
looking at something. And all that in the style of the typeface we're
using (which is why I took several shapes straight from the font and
modified them).

Obviously, GNU MediaGoblin isn't as recognizable as, say, Nike, so
it's probably a good idea to have both an icon and a logotype. We
could use the logotype when it's needed, while using the icon as a
small, recognizable image to put on different pages. We could put it
in the top left corner and use it as a "home" button.

------------------------

Okay, so the second thing: colors! In the image posted above I used a
light blue-green and I've grown quite fond of it. I think it will make
a good highlight color, for several reasons:

1. I like how it looks. We want things to be easy on the eyes, after all. :)
2. It works well as a highlight color, for instance for links.
3. It isn't *too* bright. This last one is very important, I think. I
made some mockups of individual pages where I used this color for
links. What's interesting is that when you look at the text and links,
it's easy to recognize. However when you focus on the image on an
image page, it fades into the background and doesn't distract the eye.

I might make it a little less bright still, but for now I'm pretty
satisfied with what I have. I've pushed this to my branch on Gitorious
and thanks to cwebber it's now also in the master branch, so you can
check it out!

Let me know what you think!

Jef