Re: [libreoffice-design] Rebranding doodling

Hi Alex,

Le 01/09/12 14:29, alexander.wilms a écrit :
> Hi everyone,
>
> An idea that's been floating around in my head for some time was
> making 3d meshes part of the motif, so I started drafting something:
> http://ubuntuone.com/7Ga5G3sb4B9tURr2U5pkyQ
>
> I used Open Sans instead of Vegur, since it got this very clean
> appearance and because we wanted to abandon Vegur. Moving the TDF
> tagline to the right would improve the visual balance of our logo. I
> kept it very flat in order to follow swiss style guidelines.
>
> The idea behind the motif is symbolizing LibreOffice with a
> stonemason's tool, that helps him carve the rough-hewed ideas. (Mesh
> with vertices wide apart -> e.g. a character) The 'a' looks a bit
> broken, ideally the 3d model would be a bit cleaner.
>
> What do you think of this?


Well, to be honest, my first impression was "it's outdated!"

Let me explain :
First of all, I'm officially a mechanical engineer but I've always 
worked as a developer. I had my first computer in 1984 (Oric Atmos !) 
and my first Mac in 1986 (Mac 512/800). At that times, creating a 3D 
mesh was fantastic and I was hardly copying every line of code from 
every book that was supposed to create 3D. Between 1990 and 1992, while 
studying mechanics, I wrote a simple FEM (Finite Element Method) 
software with a 3D visualization part. On 680x0 Macs, every rendering 
was done in 1 or 2 minutes, yes every *image* ! With our first PowerPC 
Mac, every image was rendered in 15 to 30 seconds... (ok, the code was 
in ObjectPascal or C++ and not optimized, no OpenGL and CPU-only).
So showing a 3D rendering was still a demonstration of some skills.

So your proposals sent me back to those years ! (Thanks !)

But now, every browser with a few javascript lines can do much better...[1]

Your idea to associate LibreOffice to a stonemason's tool is good, but 
the first visual result is not pertinent IMHO.
After some reflexions, I also find that I'm also disturbed by the 3D 
world : LibreOffice is about writing document, 2D documents --> a 3D 
logo seems non coherent.
Some users may think "LibreOffice is a CAD software now ???" ;-)

To stay in a 2D world, there are already some icons :
XCode : http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fichier:Logo_xcode.png
InterfaceBuilder : http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fichier:InterfaceBuilder.png
And it's very obvious that they mean "a tool to create..."

I would suggest to look at the concepts of "Draft", "blueprint", 
"layer", "visual guide", everything that is associated to 2D creation 
(technical and why not artistic), everything that allows to go from 
mock-up, hand-made, rough, sketch to a complete architectural/technical 
2D plan.
And it's a suggestion from someone who has NO knowledge/talent in 
aesthetic design ;-)


The "Open Sans" font is good [2].
I would just like the words "LibreOffice" to be lighter (if it's possible)



And your idea brings other questions/reflexions :
- is LO really a "stonemason's tools" ? which part is strong ? which 
part is weak ? which part is missing ?
- which kind of tools do we want to focus on ?
- how can we modify/enhance UI/UX to provide those "stonemason's tools" ?


Hope this helps,
Regards,
Michel


[1] http://learningwebgl.com/blog/?page_id=1217
and the 'hello world' of 3D : the tea pot :
http://learningwebgl.com/lessons/lesson14/index.html
and for fun :
http://www.osnews.com/story/23097/Quake_II_Ported_to_HTML5

[2] so good that I decided to use it for all my professional visual 
identity !

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