[CREATE] consensus constitency persistence

[Robert Martinez]

So in short there are two ideas:

#1 have ONE look & logo
     _easier to communicate/introduce
     _reliable and ready any time

&

#2 have a meta-identity that reinvents itself with each re-incarnation 
of the LGM
     _expressing the many-sidedness of LGM
     _offering new artists and and occasions a fresh look each time 
(practicing and preaching LGM ;) )

Did I get that right?

If I did, I propose to focus on having clear and stable HTML markup and 
structure of the CMS of choice and go for idea #1. And then #2. :P
I like the idea of having a LGM "brand" that cannot be expressed just in 
ONE way, but is easy to recognize in different styles.

Cheers,
Robert


On 08/19/2010 07:17 PM, Louis Desjardins wrote:
> Hi Ricardo, Yuval and all !
>
> All this is completely interesting and inspiring !
>
> I have to say that depending on the point of view I am encline to 
> agree alternatively with both of you !
>
> Coming from the graphic world and owning myself a company that 
> specialized in graphic design and print, I am fully aware of what a 
> brand is.
>
> Talking about LGM, here are a few thoughts to add to this discussion. 
> Some will refer to what Yuval brought up about past LGMs and some will 
> be echoing the essay from Ricardo !
>
> As an organiser, what I need is communication means that have to be 
> ready in time in order to promote the event and talk with sponsors. 
> This has to start right away after an LGM is finished. The 
> organisation of the next must already be on the go. For that reason, I 
> much prefer that we keep the logo we have, for instance, so we can 
> concentrate on the communictations we have to make and not on how we 
> will look to the outside world.
>
> So, if for instance we would like to modify the logo each year as we 
> did over the last years, then it would be advisable as we already have 
> discussed that the design of the logo and website and everything 
> related to our external communications fall into the same 2-year 
> process we have established for the venue. This means that we would be 
> ready with the new design, each year, ahead of time. So the 
> communications for the next LGM could in fact start immediately after 
> LGM is over.
>
> Of course, my concerns are pretty practical. It’s not that I don’t 
> want to enter the discussion about the benefits of keeping the same 
> brand for years or on the other hand change it every year. No. But I 
> want to stress what is needed, when it is needed and why it is needed.
>
> For LGM 2011, I would keep the same logo as in Brussels. Unless... 
> (more below)... What motivates this decision is because otherwise we 
> would enter a long process for creating and then proposing and 
> discussing the next logo... I think we need to concentrate on the 
> sponsors and on the organisation of the event itself. Of course, I 
> will be glad to read any further thoughts on that ! Maybe in 2012 we 
> will have a different logo? We would then start working on it very 
> shortly...
>
> Same applies for the website. What we really need as an organisation 
> is more functionnalities in the website than a redesign each year. 
> Once we will have all the mechanics working, including a way of 
> reserving and paying for t-shirts, food, etc. then we could of course 
> make the website change in look every year, within a 2-year process...
>
> Then, about the branding itself... By professionnal bias, I would 
> start by recommending that we keep the brand solid for a few years as 
> Yuval suggests. But at the same time I completely understand that 
> Libre Graphics could also be well served by a change every year. The 
> website itself could list the various logos so we could click on them 
> to access the previous LGM websites... It would show the dynamism of 
> the LG community. Not a bad idea. We could thus interest — and even 
> make it a contest? — artists to participate to this change. The name 
> would not change, so it’s already a solid tree. The branches and 
> leaves and ground and background would be different each year...
>
> Really, my main objection is to work into a time frame that can 
> obviously only lead to improvisation or a misuse of time. Doing things 
> the right way at the right time would allow such changes that could be 
> completely inspiring...
>
> Another way to look at this is, if we want a change for 2011, think of 
> how we would make a transition. Use the Brussels logo and change the 
> name of the city and dates and use this for early communications with 
> sponsors... And then sometimes in Autumn, unveil the new brand... This 
> might work, what do you think?
>
> Louis
>
> 2010/8/19 ricardo lafuente <bollecs at sollec.org 
> <mailto:bollecs at sollec.org>>
>
>     Hi Yuval,
>
>     Thanks for raising this issue. Now that some projects are gaining
>     traction, it's the right time to discuss how the Libre Graphics
>     community presents itself to the public.
>
>     I do have some reserves as to the proposed way to tackle this
>     challenge. If i understand correctly, your idea is to set a fixed
>     'brand' for the Libre Graphics community, and a set of design
>     guidelines to apply to most/all of the materials that are created
>     for and from it.
>
>     In art school, i went through 2 years of corporate identity
>     design. Even though LG is not a corporation but a community,
>     what's being talked here is the creation (or rather,
>     consolidation) of an identity. Identity guidelines and style
>     manuals are commonplace in the corporate world, defining what you
>     can and cannot do in order to style something as belonging to your
>     'brand'. This is because corporate image needs very clear
>     boundaries so that new designers don't end up unwittingly tweaking
>     the identity and creating confusion in brand recognition.
>
>     However, my impression is that this kind of 'top-down' identity
>     definition might not be appropriate once we get out of a corporate
>     context. Namely, i find it downplays the role that new designers
>     might have in creating new directions for an identity by setting
>     in stone some directives that they can't stray from.
>
>     Of course, one consequence of not having fixed and thorough style
>     guidelines is that identity gets diluted according to the creative
>     perspectives of different people. This in an issue for a company,
>     but less so for a free-culture oriented community. I'm reminded of
>     the discussion around OSP's logo proposal for LGM2010, which
>     strayed from the de facto LGM identity so far (the ink splatter).
>     That discussion was tremendously relevant to me, since it showed
>     that the identity of an event or community is much more defined by
>     what's done there, rather than its outward presentation. And that
>     having multiple, coexisting perspectives on the graphic identity
>     of the community might actually be a Good Thing(tm), even though
>     it challenges principles that we're accostumed to when dealing
>     with brands and identities.
>
>     It's very interesting to confront coding principles and graphic
>     guidelines like you did (never thought of it that way), but i
>     think those metaphors can only go so far. For instance, Linus's
>     law -- "given enough eyes, all bugs are shallow" -- doesn't really
>     apply to graphic work: not only do many cooks run the risk of
>     spoiling the broth, but the 'success' of a graphic piece is not
>     measurable by efficiency guidelines, as lines of code can be. The
>     same regarding your comparison to a 'coding style guide' -- their
>     purpose is efficiency, since mixed writing styles make reading
>     code harder; however, should we really constrain the decisions of
>     designers who might join the boat later, and who might have
>     something new and unexpected to introduce? Given your proposed
>     5-year timeframe, i think this is an issue.
>
>     You mentioned the danger of 'reinventing the wheel'. Again, i
>     think this does not apply to creative and aesthetic perspectives,
>     which are closer to an evolving and ever-changing set of loose
>     (and often unwritten) guidelines like a cake recipe, than a
>     functional tool such as a wheel or a hammer. No sense in
>     reinventing the wheel, sure, but it's a good goal to aim for a
>     tastier cake at each go. And since everyone's taste is their own,
>     it's safe to say that no one cake will be ideal for each and every
>     one of us -- which doesn't mean that we shouldn't keep on working
>     on fancier recipes.
>
>     Finally, i think that one of the most rewarding parts in design
>     work is having the freedom to experiment and express our own
>     aesthetic perspectives -- which can seldom be described verbally
>     or textually --, something that's simply not allowed in a context
>     in which all decisions were made a priori, where the designer is
>     not a decision-maker or creator but a simple executor.
>
>     I think you made very good points, and please don't understand
>     this as a dismissal of your proposal -- it's very possible to find
>     common ground between our multiple views. How can we have a good,
>     solid Libre Graphics presence and still be open to ever-changing
>     internal views, be them aesthetic or pragmatic? I'd risk an answer
>     now, but i'd love to know your thoughts before.
>
>     Pardon my large essays, but i hate to feel that i missed some
>     points i wanted to make.
>
>     :r
>
>
>     On 08/19/2010 02:09 PM, Yuval Levy wrote:
>
>         On August 19, 2010 03:51:18 am Camille Bissuel wrote:
>
>             I'll be glad to provide visuals for the Create community,
>             and from a
>             designer point of view, it's always a good idea to have
>             some charter to
>             base on.
>
>
>         exactly.  It's like a coding style guide for developers.  I
>         don't remember any
>         such charter presented here in the past five years.  It would
>         be a major step
>         forward, like a coding style guide is a major step forward for
>         a software
>         project:  it solves a significant chunk of potential bike-sheds.
>
>
>             But I don't what to bridle anyone creativity (on the
>             magazine for example)
>             just because I'm the first one to provide something...
>             furthermore LG
>             Magazine #0 was here first, and I didn't base my designs
>             on it.
>
>
>         Your intentions are noble.  Fact is that if we are to evolve
>         to the next
>         level, we must stop fiddling at this level. There is a
>         trade-off to be played.
>         Creativity has to be directed to areas that have not been
>         exploited yet.
>
>
>             So, it really have to be a consensus, especially from the
>             concerned
>             designers.
>
>
>         Actually more a consensus of the "customers", i.e. the
>         projects represented in
>         LG or the LG Board.  Without the weight of some governance,
>         the consensus will
>         not last beyond a single edition, while ideally it should last
>         for a few.
>
>         Without governance every new designer that joins the fray
>         could see this as a
>         free game and reinvent the wheel from scratch.
>
>         The weight of governance makes the difference between a mature
>         project (that
>         IMHO LG should strive to be) and a greenfield startup (the
>         impression I have
>         when looking at it from an external perspective).
>
>
>         On August 19, 2010 07:06:28 am ginger coons wrote:
>
>             I would suggest that the magazine, being a slightly
>             different beast from
>             the site, the logo, the conference, might in fact have a
>             different
>             aesthetic. Because we're not talking here about a
>             mouthpiece for the Libre
>             Graphics movement, a brochure, we're talking about a
>             magazine with the
>             space to grow and change and in fact, build up a community
>             that doesn't
>             really exist yet: a strong Libre Graphics user community.
>             I think that
>             could be quite a different thing from the official face.
>
>
>         Mostly agree.  Growth and change are not necessarily
>         synonymous and you want
>         to mix them wisely.  Sometimes growth is change, but sometimes
>         it is the
>         maturity of consistency.  You print professionals know it
>         better than the rest
>         of us:  make a good template, use it for a few editions (e.g.
>         a cycle of say
>         four regular editions and one or two special editions) and
>         revisit when the
>         content starts breaking the barrier of the media, not the
>         other way around.
>
>         Yuv
>
>
>
>         _______________________________________________
>         CREATE mailing list
>         CREATE at lists.freedesktop.org <mailto:CREATE at lists.freedesktop.org>
>         http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/create
>
>
>     _______________________________________________
>     CREATE mailing list
>     CREATE at lists.freedesktop.org <mailto:CREATE at lists.freedesktop.org>
>     http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/create
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> CREATE mailing list
> CREATE at lists.freedesktop.org
> http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/create
>    

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/create/attachments/20100819/2c8b3c50/attachment-0001.htm>