Refining Logo Final

We are refining Mitch's logo choice, selected from here: LogoFinals

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Questions for Apr 11th Logo Meeting:

• What's the difference between Visual Style and Visual Impact (I think we're trying to pinpoint Visual Style today, not Visual Impact.)
• What's the difference between Branding for a Product defined around Lifestyle (e.g. Cars) versus Branding for Product defined around Function? (Mac versus Windows)

• What's our Brand Mythology?

In Search of a Visual Style

• Cute versus Serious
• Cutting edge versus Conservative
• Active versus Passive

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Deliverables

Platforms: XP, OSX, Linux, Vista (in order of importance)

Sizes: 16x16, 24x24, 32x32, 48x48, 64x64, 128x128

Desktop Contexts: Task bar / Dock, Desktop, File system / Finder

Web Contexts: Cosmo Sign-up, Cosmo UI Header, Landing page, Wiki

Print Contexts: T-shirts, Hats, etc.

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DogResearch

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Visual Style Discussion

Hi, Here's a summary of our meeting...and some next actions:

Things we want to communicate with the Logo -

• Qualities: Competent, Able, Possesses Emotional Intelligence,
  • A herding dog or a seeing-eye dog that guides, negotiates busy streets, traffic, etc.
• Friendly, Good-natured, but not Beside Itself with Joy
• Ready for Activity, Alert but not On Guard, Aggressive, On the Attack, Predatory, Giving Chase or Racing

Stance: NOT

• Jumping in the air to catch a frisbee
• In a full out run racing or chasing
• Hunched down, stalking and hunting

Also NOT

• Sitting
• Lying down
• Playing dead
• Sniffing around

What I've been aiming for:

• The moment right when the dog is just about to do something very active like break out into a run.
• A hint of the outdoors: Wind, Sun, etc.
• A feeling of expectation.

Visual Style:

• Modern, but not Cutting Edge or Edgy
• Fun and Warm, but not necessarily Ahh, that's cute!

If Chandler were a Car:

• Somewhere between a Mini and Prius (less flashy than a Mini, more fun than a Prius)
• Honda Element? But perhaps more organic? (assuming you don't think they're ugly as sin, I don't ;o)

If Chandler were Furniture

• Think Eames era furniture? Ergonomic, organic, wood, but stripped down to basics, no extras.
  • EamesPlywoodLoungeChair^?.jpg:
    
• But not quite as minimalist and boxy as Contemporary style stainless steel kitchens.
  • nyloft-xera-bridge-kitchen-thumb.jpg:
    

If Chandler were a Retail Clothing Store

• The stuff would look like Banana Republic, but have the morals of REI
• Not so much Bloomingdales, Brooks Brothers, Diesel, Lucky Strike, Sean John, Anthropologie, Old Navy?

If Chandler were a Hobby

• Somewhere between Golf and Skateboarding
• Running club? Team Ironman Training? Local Soccer League?

If Chandler were a News Periodical

• NYT? Not WSJ or FT or USA Today
• Not Newsweek, but not Foreign Affairs Journal either. New Yorker? Vanity Fair? Harpers? (Maybe that's even trying too hard.)

If Chandler were a Shampoo

• Not Pert Plus or Aveda
• Something you'd get at Whole Foods / Trader Joe's?

If Chandler were a Supermarket

• Somewhere between Trader Joes and Whole Foods?

Priscilla has also stressed that we endeavor to have something that is unique to Chandler. So that it's not just another Dog Logo. A good example of this is the Sirius logo which is incorporating the star in the dog's eye and the antenna in the tail, Sirius (being the brightest star also known as dog star) back into the product—a satellite/media company.

• sirius_logo.gif:
  

So this leads us to the question of: What is Unique about Chandler?

My take on it is: Chandler's uniqueness comes from the ridiculously earnest, pro-social bent of the product and project. As a project, we have a whole philosophy about how people 'should' work together in an equal, respectful and transparent way which builds trust, mutual understanding and great teams. Yayyy!!! These beliefs permeate both the product and the way we go about building the product as a project.

I think when we chose pro-social as our #1 brand message, that earnestness and good will was the thing we decided we wanted to communicate. Chandler as a name doesn't really communicate that. It's really all up to the Logo.

Perhaps this is why I have been hesitant to emphasize the concrete aspects of the product in the past: things like checkmarks and calendars. Those aren't particularly unique to Chandler? Every PIM has those? Instead, our logos have always been pretty abstract, idealistic, and conceptual.

So for me, the Dog is the 'gimmick'. It is our equivalent of the Sirius star-in-the-eye and antenna-tail. Katie took a guess at articulating for me why Mitch chose the dog concept:

6:07:12 PM kicapps: (a) association with "family friendly" or "people friendly" workplace
6:07:26 PM kicapps: (b) his relationship with his own dogs
6:07:48 PM kicapps: (c) people who like dogs are thought of as "good people" more socially aware more thoughtful

So for me, the dog should emote all these things: Friendly, Family-Friendly, People-Friendly, Relationships built on Trust, Social Awareness, Emotional Intelligence, in a word Pro-social. Then add to that the other concepts we've been working with: Productive, Adaptable, Confident, Better Decisions, etc... If we can communicate all of this emotionally in a logo that possesses visual clarity, then I think we have a winner. :o)

Last thought: After talking to Priss, we both agreed that perhaps making a more 'graphical or iconic dog'** is not the right direction? It's very difficult to abstract the dog and retain the emotional impact I'm describing above. Instead, the graphical dogs start to feel ironic, cute or scary and creepy...which given our earnest message feels contrived or inappropriate?)

**By graphical I mean "more line art-y" less photo-realism. By "iconic" I mean, more abstracted, like a shape or symbol and less literal, less realistic.

To see what I'm talking about: Compare the first 4 iterations: http://wiki.osafoundation.org/Journal/RefiningLogoFinal#StyleExplorations

Just some food for thought.

Next actions:

• Let's keep the above in mind and continue to explore variations on the dog? I've started some here: http://wiki.osafoundation.org/Journal/RefiningLogoFinal#StyleExplorations

The problems we want to solve:

• Communicate what is unique about Chandler within the Dog Logo concept.

• Solve the left-right issues. How can we make the logo work so the dog is looking to the right (as in, into the content if placed in the upper-lefthand corner of a browser page?)

• Something that resizes well. I don't think we need to have something that looks like a dog per se at 16x16, but it should have a clear, indentifiable shape at 16x16, the way the Peace Sign would look clear at 16x16.

Please upload your own. (I know everyone is really busy, so even some feedback on what's there would be great. Namely: How well are we solving the problems listed above?)

Please let me know if you have any questions.

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• visual style map:
  

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Explorations

• Calder
  

• Bushy
  

• Superdog_check.png:
  

• Superdog_Red.png:
  

• Superdog_Lipstick.png:
  

• Superdog_Gold.png:
  

• Superdog_Grey.png:
  

• Checkbox_Dog.png:
  

• Superdog_check_wing.png:
  

• Superdog_circle_wing.png:
  

• Logo_in_situ.png:
• There's definitely a lot going on in the upper left-hand corner. But I think that's a Cosmo UI layout issue. Playing around with header styles.

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Final Candidates

• Superdog_Red.png:
  

• Superdog_Green.png:
  

• Superdog_Gold_2.png:
  

• Logo_Dock_3_colors2.png:
  

• Superdog_Ears_forward.png:
  

• Superdog_Reverse.png:
  

Proceed with...

• Superdog_Red.png:
  

• Superdog_Reverse.png: