New logo gone vectorised. (SVG format)

[Matt Austern]

On Jan 12, 2005, at 12:23 PM, Aaron W. LaFramboise wrote:

> Ian Lance Taylor wrote:
>
>> The hypothetical new logo should represent the compiler.  It should
>> ideally represent what the compiler does, and what it aspires to do,
>> albeit perhaps in highly symbolized form.  It should be recognizable,
>> look good in several different sizes on computer screens, look good in
>> black and white, look good on a T-shirt or a book cover.  It should
>> inspire people and give them confidence.  It should feed the hungry
>> and create world peace.  It should be only 1K.  That is what I would
>> like to see in a logo.
>
> Anyone interested in designing a logo for an open source, community
> project should check out what Boost is doing right now.  They are
> replacing their old, fairly unrecognizable logo with a new one, and
> recently theres been tons of discussion on what the new one should be:
> <http://www.crystalclearsoftware.com/cgi-bin/boost_wiki/wiki.pl? 
> BoostLogo>.
>
> The Boost mailing list archives contain all sorts of very useful
> information for anyone interested in creating a successful logo (search
> for logo).  Besides some very valuable informations, theres a whole lot
> of nonsense, and a whole lot of excellent examples of why most
> organizations don't let computer scientists and engineers design logos
> in the first place.

I'm not convinced we need a new logo; the existing GCC logo seems fine  
to me, and I think we've got more pressing issues.  I'd rather have a  
new register allocator, a new C parser, and a new parse tree  
representation.

But *if* we were designing a new logo for GCC, my inclination would be  
to go in the direction of something even more stylized and abstract,  
something withe even simpler shapes and even less directly related to  
animals or compilers, than what we've got.  I'm just looking at some of  
the memorable logos that I see in my office around me: the Addison  
Wesley logo, three triangles arranged in a pattern;  MIT Press's logo,  
a pattern of seven vertical bars; the Java logo, a stylized coffee cup;  
  EDG's logo, a simple stylized light bulb;  Apple's logo, a simple  
shape with a little bit of 3d shading.  (Apple's logo is actually the  
most complicated I can see around me; it's the only one that uses  
subtle gradations of color.  But then, we all know that my employer  
thinks different.)

I also agree that we're the wrong group of people to do this and that  
*if* we decide we need a new logo we would do well to get some advice  
on goals from marketing and branding professionals.  I'm sure there are  
some friendly people in those communities who would be interested in  
doing a good deed for the FSF.

			--Matt