Jonathan Turkanis wrote:
"Aaron W. LaFramboise" <aaronrabiddog51@aaronwl.com> wrote in message news:41AD82CE.30006@aaronwl.com...
Vladimir Prus wrote:
How can you rationally decide if a nice colored rocket is better than b/w logo from Joaquin that is beatifylly minimalistic? It's simply not possible.
I agree that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder."
But we may not be looking for beauty. Likely we are looking for a logo that meets a set of requirements, and further performs well versus a variety of useful tests. I do not think objective evaluation of a logo is any more impossible than objective evaluation of libraries to be included with Boost.
I believe a logo should be simple, elegant, visually distinctive and say something very straighforward about Boost, such as that it has to do with C++, or has a relationship with the C++ standardization process.
That may not even be neccessary. Look at Adobe, Microsoft, Apple, UPS, ... Even FedEx only makes the vaguest semantic connection. I think visual distinctiveness is really the most important thing. It's more important that the logo *not* communicate the things we don't intend (e.g. amateurishness).
The differences between
(i) Boost expands on the standard library (ii) Boost aims to produce libraries which will be standardized (iii) Boost aims to produce libraries many but not all of which will be standardized (iv) Boost aims to produce libraries of the same quality as the standard library
are too subtle to reflect in a logo. If a logo requires detailed analysis to understand, it's no good. It's like a movie score: it makes you feel good, the movie would seem bland without it, but if you notice it and have to think about it the composer did a bad job.
Agreed.
So it seems appropriate to collect a reasonably large number of logo proposals with very different designs and eventually vote on which is most pleasing.
Agreed.
The various graphic design requirements that have been suggested are a bit too strict, IMO. It's not necessary for the logo to be in vector format, as long as high-quality raster versions are available in various resolutions. It's also not necessary that the logo should be renderable as a 16x16 pixel icon: it should be sufficient that an alternate 16x16 logo is provided which has clear stylistic connections to the main logo. The requirement that the logo look good in black and white seems sound, though.
No real objections, but why? -- Dave Abrahams Boost Consulting http://www.boost-consulting.com