At 01:57 10/03/2005, you wrote: Firstly there are a lot of things I agree with you in your previous post... and was responding to it because it was (I feel) it is good starting point (because it summarized a lot of my concerns) to make the comments to the list as a whole that I felt needed making, not against your own post... perhaps I should of been clearer about that. Unfortunately with a brief scan of your response.. your interpretation of my post maybe different, I guess I have a lot to learn about posting "correctly" here.

My personal take is that it says "safety" to an industry that's anything but predictable. Which isn't to denigrate it. I like blue. Got blue color schemes on all my machines (or teal, which is close). It just seemed that no one had given it any thought,

That's what I'm trying to say.. (ok doing it badly)... about getting the basics (things like colour / font / capitalization) sorted.. however perhaps these will come out in post selection changes.

and I was trying to, well, *goose* people a bit, maybe get someone to try something else. If you noticed it as it breezed past and sank, my one early attempt was blue, and I thought at that time (seem to recall some posts that made me think that) we were supposed to keep the old color, to minimize collateral changes to color in the page content.

I guess most of use like stability.. which is strange given the innovative libraries in boost.

As for "targeting the audience," I harbor a deep suspicion that just because coders work with text doesn't mean they'll necessarily *respond* positively to it. Sadly, I have a wee bit of experience to tell me that (don't ask, don't tell <g>). For one thing, yeah, we're working in a text medium, but I don't really think the bulk of us are really all that language-oriented.

That's actually a very good observation! I'd been thinking of the day to day textual side.. not thinking of what goes on inside the mind.

I'd wager that better than 95% of the people who track this list are male (which I do *not* say to belittle women, or even to suggest that the logo should just target males--I'm just talking numbers),

Unfortunately its the world we live in :o(

which dictates a pretty strong statistical leaning towards problem-solving techniques based on some form of physical visualization. (About to commit the sin of generalizing from a single particular, but...) I'm about as language-oriented as it goes, with an advanced degree in writing and Lit, but when I code, I *picture* things. Abstract patterns of colored blocks, actually. It's subtle, but there. Now, after all that disquisition, I'll observe that a text logo can work. Good ones are pretty hard to do, but you can think of some if you try. However, apart from IBM, can you really think of many others? Look closely at HP's logo, or Motorola's, any of that ilk, and you'll see there's a graphic component even to them. Hell, there's one to IBM's. Check out what their trademark actually is. Block serif lettering in a particular shade of blue, broken by horizontal drop-outs. Hmmmn. I'm looking at the Dell logo on my monitor; not sure what it means to do. Looks like it's got "lazy E syndrome." <g> It may be that a large percentage of the submissions are text-based simply because that's the first idea anyone will have, on average.

I think you are right about the submissions, and right that perhaps (if I understand you correctly) an abstract logo is a better way to go.

I would say that, yes you *do* need to be thinking about all those foundations, if you expect to get it trademarked, because anything not explicitly specified in the description will *not* be considered part of the trademark. You also have to be careful not to over-constrain the definition, or you can arrive at situations where you can't claim copyright protection for certain usages. For instance, a logo I once did (still think it's my best) for a rock band was largely defined by a geometric pattern that surrounded and dominated the opening capital of the band's name. There was also a backdrop done in a flame scheme by airbrush, and I'd designed a custom font for the name that echoed patterns in the geometric figure. The description finally filed mentioned only the figure and the name. Including the font would have forced the band to always use only that font. Likewise the backdrop; that logo had to appear on a number of things, and lots of them wouldn't have been conducive to having a lot of deep saturated reds, oranges, and yellows on them. I'm speaking of US trademark law, of course. I don't know the conventions in other countries. But yeah, I do think of this process as "establishing a brand," in the full commercial sense.

That's one of the thinks I was questioning in my head.. what's a logo.. why is a new one needed.. what I personally came back to each time was actually we are trying to establish a brand.. and that the logo is just part of it. Maybe my interpretation as a causal observer is wrong.

Were I at liberty to drop names, I could tell you a tale of a company that neglected to trademark a very important part of what had come to be a long-established and well-known brand, and their main competitor simply appropriated it for their own advertising, undoubtedly luring customers who associated that very key thing with the wrong company. But I ain't. And I ain'ta gonna. <g> Okay, Boost isn't a "company" in the traditional sense. But it's got to work with laws designed for corporate protection, and that means really working with them.

That's an interesting comment, one which I'd never of thought of... has anyone?

Yeah, it's personal. Since Boost isn't a company I "own" or do branding for though, I'm not emotional about it. If it's seemed that way, I apologize for the impression I managed to import into my messages.

Sorry what I meant was the choice of logo is personal and emotive to everyone here.. everyone has their own reasons, its not (as) logical like voting for a library submission.

And yep, discussion is the key. Which is what we're doing, I thought. <g>

Yeah.. and you have made me think of a few areas, problems, and ideas which I hadn't even considered before. Thanks! Regards Mark