On Tuesday 16 Nov 2010 12:48:38 Christoph Noack wrote:
Hi Thorsten, hi David! Before I start: I really appreciate any activity which strengthens our community, improves collaboration and - not to forget - improves how our users perceive our software and the community. Reading the initial idea of the "art contest" reminds me of some of the darker sides of the OpenOffice.org project. I won't go into details of the already written thoughts - I think many people already expressed their experience with that. Moreover, I think Thorsten seconds the experiences we made ... and although I don't want to doom any kind of (well prepared, smaller) contest or artwork request, I think this is neither the right time and the right approach. (By the way, I tried to comment Thorsten's thoughts, but I failed, because everything is important to me. So please bear with the TOFU for that single time *g*). To start with an additional thought: Only start with such an activity, if you are sure that the outcome will be really used. This is something we try to make our internal clients aware of: If one misses to do some homework (or the information you need is just not there), and the contest doesn't lead to something the organization had in mind, then either a) the "spirit" will turn into strong disappointment, or, b) you just pick "any" design proposal to please somebody (design proposal: artwork, workflow design, software architecture). So are we ready to work on the "Community Branding"? We (in terms of the LibO community) are still about planning the homework, not even doing it. The "Community Roadmap" is e.g. one of the TDF work items [1] - deriving the "goals", "mission statement", "strategy" Thorsten talked about. So it might help even more people, to start to work on that. This is one of the reasons why I've asked for the branding roadmap [2] some days ago - and some of you agreed to it (most people I know from the time at OOo), as well as the Steering Committee. We are aware that the community branding is very important, and this is the reason for letting the current dust settle a bit. The dust ... We miss some "tailored" communication framework at the moment to make our communicate more efficient. Furthermore, we currently try to suit the needs of our users with a decent LibreOffice 3.3 release. I know that some of the people that I consider essential here, are unable to support a topic like "artwork (contest)" at the moment. To sum it up, I don't think that we are lacking skilled and experienced artists (with regard to OOo) - the more I am pleased to see some new names and great proposals. But what I really miss are both background information and a better communication framework. For the community branding - however we will develop it - these are essential prerequisites. So, personally, I'd like to focus on that first.
Big +1
Cheers, Christoph
cheers GL
[1] http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/TDF/Work_Items#general_Community [2] http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/User:ChristophNoack/Work_Items Am Montag, den 15.11.2010, 10:51 +0100 schrieb Thorsten Wilms:On Mon, 2010-11-15 at 16:25 +0800, David Nelson wrote:@TDF guys: I'd like to make one last plea for my idea of a logo/mascot competition (if you have clear arguments against it, I'll drop the subject).Contests are devoid of the traditional client/designer relationship. There tends to be no strategy, no briefing, no iterations. A contest means that each participant invests their time, betting on creating the one design that will be selected. Contest holders don't value people's time and effort and you have to wonder if participants value their own time and effort. Contests do not speak of community and cooperation. It's everyone against everyone else. Building on each others work is discouraged. The risk of ending up with a "good" design that just lacks some refinement is sometimes met with a refinement stage after the contest. There you can marvel at design by committee in action. You will often see lots of participants with little or no design education and a panel of judges that have little to no clue what they are actually looking for, either. Do you think BMW, Apple or Gucci would hold a logo design contest? http://troy-sobotka.blogspot.com/2010/10/spec-work-and-contests-part-two. html http://www.no-spec.com/4) We can capitalize on the contact we've made with Ubuntu Artwork; if they're willing, they can "foster" us in this to some extent, and LibO participants can learn and develop a lot of good workflow methods and practices from an experienced and successful "big brother" project. It will also develop and strengthen this new relationship.You are deluded regarding the scale, reach and success found in Ubuntu Artwork (as a community project). I told you before, but apparently you didn't listen. Does it help to show this are not just claims of some random guy if I say I have been involved since 2007 and have been sponsored to attend the Ubuntu Developer Summit 2 times? (Hmm, guess that means nobody should ask me about successful team-building!) Guess I sound overly negative, but I just want to avoid wrong expectations. On to the constructive part, what should happen: First you need a good briefing. Even if you still do a contest, you should have one. At the core is the mission statement of the entire project. What are the goals? Based on that, you might formulate a strategy. That's the foundation to decide on your tone and message. What do you want to express with your visual design? Set priorities. Without a good briefing, you have nothing to evaluate designs, expect for the highly subjective "I like this" vs "but I like that". Also see: http://thorwil.wordpress.com/2010/03/09/design-in-collaborative-projects/ Developing such a briefing, as well as technical and legal requirements, is a task best handled by a small group. You could then select a single or maybe 2 or 3 designers, based on their availability and past work. Or, if you must, have a concept/drafting phase open for all. But instead of turning it into a contest, it should be a designer's job distributed on many shoulders.
-- Graham Lauder, OpenOffice.org MarCon (Marketing Contact) NZ http://marketing.openoffice.org/contacts.html OpenOffice.org Migration and training Consultant. INGOTs Assessor Trainer (International Grades in Open Technologies) www.theingots.org -- E-mail to marketing+help@libreoffice.org for instructions on how to unsubscribe List archives are available at http://www.libreoffice.org/lists/marketing/ All messages you send to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted