A proposal for the Pylons Logo

A few days ago I visited the pylons website, recognizing a website which was about doing a branding for the pylons web framework. I got a mail from Ben Bangert, that they are interested in proposal, so here is my concept..

I will write down some of my thoughts about this.

I apologize for my bad english, I am no native speaker, I am german. Especially for this rough draft where I don't think too much about right grammar and writing style..

First impressions & thoughts about colors

Ben Bangert send my a picture with his mail, which was in blue / yellow color, it seemed to be that he meant the new CI colors of Python - light blue, light yellow, light grey.

As you can see, they are all light, which is sometimes nice, but in my opinion, to get a logo which is easily recognizable, and right from the first sight, you need some strong, high-contrast colors.

But lets have first a look at the contestants, because its good to learn from them, the good and the bad things about them:

Ruby on Rails

RoR's logo is a nice example of a high recognition value. A high contrast, not to much colors - mostly it is the best choice to stay with one "corporate color", plus a secondary color for other uses and black and white, sometimes only the color black and white plus the "coporate color". The logo is a simplified railway, which is recognizable, at least when using it with the logotype. The use of a illustrational type of logo instead a pixel-based, photo-like one is also better than the approach of Turbogears. Their "corporate color" is red and white.

TurboGears

They use the python colors, but a little bit stronger. But their logo is a little bit too complex to use it for every type of printing, online, and other stuff like making T-Shirts etc. someday. Also the name of the project doesn't really imply a logo at first tought, so the recognisation value is not so good as on Ruby. And I think they are altough too light, too backgroundy to catch the eye in every use possible.

Django

They haven't a logo, but a logotype. Its the same problem like those of TurboGears, their name doesn't imply a picture in the mind which could be connected to Django. They made the best of it, using a unique font, which isn't used by other projects. Also the color choice is very good and also unique. I know no other open source project using dark green and orange, altough they are complementary colors. In the color and typeface decisions the made good work.

Pylons (actual state)

And here the temporary logo type of Pylons. It is a simple typeface logo, like this of django, but django uses a more unique font so Django's logo is more a logo than the actual one of Pylons. So the recognition value isnt that high. The banner on the website implies a little bit more a picture in the head, but it can't be used good - see my opinion about pixel-based, photo-based logos etc. above. The colors go partly in the direction which I want to use, if you take the light green color away.

Future pylons color (in my opinion)

It is not the most important thought I have, but one that can support Pylons to stand out from the others: Use a color combination, which the others doesnt use. Django uses green and white, with support color orange, RoR uses red and white, Turbogears uses blue and yellow - for Pylons I want to use a dark yellow / black combination - like those on the signs used in the US and germany for working stuff, with support color blue.

A color palette I want to use could be this:

You have a dark yellow as the main color, plus black and white, and a blue support color, plus two lighter variants for additional use. White and black are pretty much standard so think of dark yellow primarly and blue as a support.

They are also work great on presentations, when you display them on the beamer, they have great contrast! Better than your presentation I found on "Google Video", Ben..

A good example for using black and white in a web framework / wsgi context is the logo of "Werkzeug" (german word for "tool") - which is also a nice python tool, check it out! Its from mitsuhiko, which I want to thank for the inspiration on my color thougts Altough this logo is a little to rough and simplistic, but it works for such a little project..

Graphic

For pylons, addtional to use those colors I mentioned above, I want to used a vector-based, illustrational logo, like RoR's logo. It should be sign-like, because of my "working stuff" thoughts above.

There were discussions about what definition of pylons should be used for the logo of the pylons project. I think the best would be to stay with the "power" definition of Pylons, not a egyptian or other definition. The "power" defintion is very good for a web framework project, because it is literally powering your web application - I come back to this thought later in the slogans section.

The problem with the great big pylons in the US and germany are, that they are long and tall - that is bad for a logotype. So we have to use a clipping out of a pylons. The next problem is, to get those big pylons recognisable, they have to be very complex, many cross-beams, many cables.

So I want to stick with the smaller ones, those who connect - at least here in germany - one or few houses behind the big ones. Hope that they also called pylons in the US!

Here some ideas:

Sorry for the bad quality, I will fix this when I have time. This is an simplistic rough and fast-drawn example, I will create a more trendy one later this day, and upload a few others.

((MORE LOGOS TO BE UPLOADED!!))

Typeface

I had the choice to use a general available, pretty default font with a open source license and pick someone here in my office from my professional font selection. I come to the decision, that I use a unique, highly recognisable typeface, because of the reasons I write down in the django section. For the online stuff etc. we can think about a second typeface for CSS, perhaps Trebuchet MS, fallback sans-serif.

My first idea is something like the "Berliner Grotesk" - which is strong, good readable also from the far, but has a human, natural, not-too-techy approach - people will like it

Use the preview option on the page to type PYLONS in capitals and have a look in different sizes, it works good in every size.

If you are against a font without a free license, we have to fall back to something like "Impact" or "Blue Highway", which are in some kind similar to the fonts that are used for signs in germany and the US.

If you want a decent sign typeface, I can also use the "DIN" fonts (DIN is the german standardisation corporation, like ISO) which is used in germany and much other countries for signs, but it is also a font you have to pay for. But only me, in a agency, a logo created from them is freely distributable..

Slogans for the logo and for use in general

When brainstorming, the electrical pylons / web frameworks combination works well, I can think of many slogans:

• "powering your web application"
• "powered by pylons"

• "pylons - we are everywhere!"

• "power to the people!"

• "pylons - the wsgi powerhouse"

They can be put under the project name in the logo, like I did in my example. Lets search a catchy slogan for it. Perhaps my examples are not good, a native english speaker will do better perhaps.

Merchandising

If the logo is decided, I think we should create a webshop for pylons stuff like shirts, mugs etc. - every project with fans has it, and it is a nice way to get people donating, because they get a shirt as a bonus.

Here is also the dark yellow color a big plus - think of pylons developers and users at a conference wearing a dark yellow shirt, they catch your eye immedately and also a natural interest is coming subliminal to the viewers mind..

Conclusions & Roadmap

If we use that, you can relaunch the website in those colors, that should be easy because of your good use of CSS. I can make a mockup about what I think the website could look like. We also should try to use it completely, also for the documentation, for presenations, for the placeholder index page of a new pylons project, shirts, and so on. The changes in the branding can be provided plus an information in the next big release of it, we should have people who bring Pylons in the news (different open-source news websites) - so the project get in the peoples view, and having a catchy branding will support this then.

Feedback

• Provide it like this - thank you

  • Answer of the above

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