Re: [PHPLIB] Banner, anyone? From: Kristian Koehntopp (kris <email protected>)
Date: 11/02/99

On Tue, Nov 02, 1999 at 12:28:19PM -0500, Chad wrote:
> I've put up the options so far at http://zeus1.tzo.com/logo/
> Logo contest anyone? :)

There will be no logo contest. This is not a democracy (*1). :-)

I have CVS'ed the green PHPLIB logo by Nathan Price and it will
become the official PHPLIB logo unless I get complaints from the
PHP3 core developers, which I just asked for permission to use
something _this_ similar to their logo (I think that this
similarity is a good thing).

Kristian

(*1) Why no logo contest? Well, I happen to hate logo contests.

Most of the submissions to such contests are not even logos, but
some lose graphics. A logo is an idea which is easily recognized
- to logo has to become a placeholder of the actual product or
concept it represents.

A logo is not specific, but a set of rules which can be used to
create multiple renderings, all of which bear the traits which
let you regocnize the logo and therefore the original product or
concept. Recognition is much more important than good looks - a
simple, but useable on anything logo is much more worth than
something that is cool, but only works in 1600x1280 in 32 bit
depth. And something established is much, much more worth than
something new - which is what I like in the Nathan Price design.
His design makes it clear that PHPLIB is a PHP thingie, but also
establishes a different and independent identity by using a
different color scheme.

Have a look at the SH Online logo renderings at
http://poe.shonline.de/ or at the bottom of the
http://phplib.netuse.de/ pages. The rules behind this thing are:
Three geometric objects using the basic colors of the
Schleswig-Holstein (the northmost german Bundesland/county)
flag. These objects roughly resemble the shape of the letters S,
H and O (SH Online).

Using these rules you can create arbitrary graphics bearing a
recognizeable representation of the logo, in any size and on any
medium. This is very important: A logo must work on your paper
letterhead as well as online, on your card, on your
documentation and in neon above your office door.

If there were a logo contest (or better: a CI contest), I would
like hold it in ASCII, with no ASCII art allowed. Write down the
rules that make up your logo or the "PHPLIB corporate identity"
as you see it. I know this is ugly, but I want all that "I have
used some gimp effects filter on the letters "PHPLIB" typed in
an exotic font" entries out in the first place. Not that these
do not look cool - most of them do. They are just not logos.

Then the logo contest director would mix these descriptions and
give them back out to the contestants which would then have to
create a small button for use at the bottom of a web page, a web
site "top left location" logo and a web site template using the
PHPLIB CI rules and perhaps a PDF title page and some page 10 or
so of the PHPLIB manual using the PHPLIB CI description they
received.

If your logo contest submission can be used to create such a
thing, it is something worth considering a logo (or a CI).
Programming good code is a hard job. But doing good industrial
quality graphics is even harder - which is why I am doing code
instead of graphics for a living...

Kristian

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