openSUSE Brand Logo refresh

[hellcp]

While Geeko is great, it has some issues:

• Scalability of even buttons is poor, look at favicons of software-o-o and wiki
• Logo in full form is not very readable in small sizes too (even 48x48 is hard to recognize)
• Cross-branding issues with SUSE, there is still confusion about openSUSE vs SUSE (not just a logo issue)
• Logo without text needs to be able to represent the brand (Geeko represents two identities in the case when we are unable to use openSUSE/SUSE green to differentiate or text at very low sizes)

So what are requirements for a logo?

• Geeko (well, chameleon, you know)
• Low detail with high recognizability (so it is well recognizable at 16x16)
• Usage of the current colour scheme (but a monochrome logo, not to face the same issues as Fedora)
• Logo close to 1x1, so we don't have to separate identity provided by main logo and buttons as we do currently (obviously assumed here that "openSUSE" text is gonna be a detachable part from the main body of the logo, just logo has to be 1x1, not logo + text)

Discussion prompted by excellent suggestions of Debian, Fedora and CentOS communities considering changes to their respective logos

[simotek]

While coming up with some concepts here is a great idea, ultimately this will need to go to the opensuse-project mailinglist for discussion on if and what we want to change the logo too, then the board will need to take it to SUSE for legal / trademark fun.

[hellcp]

Continuing the issue, some more logos of course:

[olivia-mativi]

Second set is great. It also better shows the "smile" of the chameleon, which I think can be an important facet of the logo. It's also less busy.

[simotek]

I'll second that I think the "Line style" logo's kinda look cool for a t shirt or something of that nature especially with some neon styling, but I don't think its as easy to integrate into a lot of designs, I think the design style looks out of place sitting next to other applications either as a "start" button on a tray or as a circular logo for something like discord or any other avatar, one of the things I like about the existing logo is we have an "avatar" form that is recognisably associated with / part of the current logo but that we allow people to customise as they see fit (see my avatar) and I don't think that works as well with this icon.

I also think if we are changing the icon we don't need to stick to the current branding / color palettes as they were designed around the color of the old logo, so I think we should put together 2-3 new alternative color palettes still with green as the core color but with an easier green to work with.

As much as i'm not always a fan of "flat" style UI's I think that in this case some form of flat style icon is probably the best way forward. If I get some time i'll also throw some proposals in although my design skills aren't the best

[m4u9]

Since it has a fan base on Discord but was not added here, I would like to throw this one into the mix.

[cyntss]

I agree with @simotek . Tshirts and other marketing materials allow for creative and artistic expressions of our logo, however, when thinking about changing a long (over 15 years) recognized trade logo we need to be more cautious. We want to create a positive impact.

In my very personal opinion, the logo proposed by @MAU-g is a much better transition from the current openSUSE logo to a more modern look and feel. I can see more resemblance of the current openSUSE brand in it and I also like the shade of green used.

[hellcp]

@cyntss seems like it's GNOME HIG green. It's certainly better than current green :P I think regardless it would be nice to aim at something bluer than yellower for new green, which this one certainly is

I'm not 100% happy about the filled geeko, but I probably should look into what could be improved, because it was a rough idea more than anything ;)

[coolo]

The suggestion of @MAU-g makes the easier to cut cookies at least (for what it's worth :)
reference

[hellcp]

Line geeko would work well for pretzels ;)

[cyntss]

The suggestion of @MAU-g makes the easier to cut cookies at least (for what it's worth :)

lol always happy to eat chameleon shaped cookies :D

[m4u9]

The suggestion of @MAU-g makes the easier to cut cookies at least (for what it's worth :)

lol always happy to eat chameleon shaped cookies :D

LOL @coolo bake cookies for everyone!! Side note I think the filled version looks a bit sharper than the line "pretzel" version when used as a button.

[simotek]

Here is a concept that someone with much better design skills can probably make better

[coolo]

hmm, but you do know the difference between a geeko and a tadpole? Your designs look more and more like random insects (or cute owls in the case of @hellcp's 2nd proposal) than an opensuse logo. Sorry to say, but I'm afraid you lost yourself in the discussion (not on discord so I can't say for sure how it happened).

[druonysus]

I am not a graphics person, but we had some art commissioned a few times for stuff we did at SCaLE. I really like the Geeko used in our openSUSE miniSummit at the Southern California Linux Expo a few years back. I have the .ai file and we have the right to modify and redistribute. Perhaps there might be something useful here even if just as inspiration.

[RokerHRO]

The logo from @athano looks nice. Albeit it does not remind me on a chamæleon, but on a mixture of sea horse and tadpole, because it has not visible limbs at all. :-)

[arcanerr]

Dear folks,
I'm just a happy openSUSE user and didn't contribute to the project (yet), but I want to let you know what actually was the very first and immediate association I had when I saw the concepts of the Geeko without limbs but with only spiral tail logo. It was: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103644/mediaviewer/rm957568768
I don't want to offend anybody, I don't have any knowledge about logo design nor do I have a better idea, nor any point whether this association is problematic at all, because I may be the only one having it. But still, I wanted to draw your attention to it.

[datenteiler]

Continuing the issue, some more logos of course:

I like the first two logo sets the most. The other logos are way too cute for me. :-)

[ghost]

That distresses the way of expressing itself of many here; I do not say it for something personal, if not that regardless of the idea here it is looking to give freshness to something and have a marked difference, all the changes generate this friction but they are always for the good.

The worrying thing here is that the idea of ​​a logo is not born at the root of that it looks nice, or that you like it or not, or if the time is ugly, if it is not seek to condense the meaning of the brand or the approach that we want to give

I have always believed that the pure and simple criticism without hairs on the tongue is what helps you grow, that you soften criticism does not help; but he is not focusing on the subject at the end.

For my part I am willing to support what they need, but it is difficult in a democracy where there are no processes to redirect opinion to take it to the common goal.

[guoyunhe]

According to the wiki, we will keep the project name openSUSE. So the logo refresh process can continue, right?

[simotek]

According to the wiki, we will keep the project name openSUSE. So the logo refresh process can continue, right?

Yep that is correct, currently its just waiting for someone to drive the process forward, we firstly need a shortlist of logo proposals for members to vote on (we only want members voting on logos that people in our design / marketing teams feel they can work with. Members will also have a choice to keep the current logo with a different green as for a long time people have complained the existing green is very hard to make work. On that topic, a couple of suggestions of different greens with an accompanying color palette to discuss are also worth while kind of like the way the existing branding guide shows how to work for the current colors with the new proposed set (obviously proposals don't need to be as well fleshed out as the current one).

It would be useful if the new palette has a similar range of colors so that as a starting point for a "branding refresh" we can just swap out colors on opensuse.org and similar.

[hellcp]

I reached out to a few open source design communities, but it didn't seem to work out too well, in any case, we have a little too few logos to actually have a reasonable amount of choice. I will try to make something too (on top of what I already submitted), and I welcome you to do the same :P

[guoyunhe]

@hellcp I don't have any confidence to my drawing skills. I know @marguerite is very good at vector graphics. (if she has some time...) And here must be some talents we haven't known yet. We can post a news article "Call for Logo Refresh", just like we have done for yearly events. The submit process can be:

0. Post "Call for Logo Refresh" news and share it in all channels.
1. Post an issue in this repo (each design should be in its own thread), with logos in several required format/size. (Can create an issue template)
2. Ask people to comment and creators can still improve the design before deadline.
3. After the deadline, let Members vote.

[hellcp]

@hellcp I don't have any confidence to my drawing skills. I know @marguerite is very good at vector graphics. (if she has some time...) And here must be some talents we haven't known yet. We can post a news article "Call for Logo Refresh", just like we have done for yearly events. The submit process can be:

Who needs skills, you just need to adjust to feedback you get ;)

1. Post "Call for Logo Refresh" news and share it in all channels.

Hopefully news-o-o will be deployed on news.opensuse.org this week, so we can do that on new infra ;)

2. Post an issue in this repo (each design should be in its own thread), with logos in several required format/size. (Can create an issue template)

I would vote for a new repo, I would really appreciate being able to continue working in this repo without getting notifications about all the new issues ;)

3. Ask people to comment and creators can still improve the design before deadline.

4. After the deadline, let Members vote.

I will reach out to election officials once we reach this state.

[simotek]

Great logo, but it looks like the one I've seen on a logos purchase page, or is that the person who made it; he is selling it.
this

@knurpht I don't think we can use the one in your avatar without discussion with the person who created the image in the above link.

[hellcp]

Great logo, but it looks like the one I've seen on a logos purchase page, or is that the person who made it; he is selling it.
this

@knurpht I don't think we can use the one in your avatar without discussion with the person who created the image in the above link.

Eh? I made it, the one you are thinking of was this one, which was too similar to this to qualify.

[simotek]

Great logo, but it looks like the one I've seen on a logos purchase page, or is that the person who made it; he is selling it.
this

@knurpht I don't think we can use the one in your avatar without discussion with the person who created the image in the above link.

Eh? I made it, the one you are thinking of was this one, which was too similar to this to qualify.

Yeah but even that one looks like a derived work and i wouldn't be comfortable using it without running it past a lawyer. but maybe that's software me thinking.

[hellcp]

Yeah but even that one looks like a derived work and i wouldn't be comfortable using it without running it past a lawyer. but maybe that's software me thinking.

I'm fairly confident it's different enough, but we will have to run every option by a lawyer anyway most likely

[guoyunhe]

Look like SUSE's logo just got refreshed:

[victorhck]

Look like SUSE's logo just got refreshed:

not only logo, all the brand identity

https://brand.suse.com/

[stereoknife]

Hey, I wanted to add these two proposals. Though they'll probably still be tweaked a bit it'll be fairly minor & the idea is already conveyed well enough with these :)

[javierllorente]

Hey, I wanted to add these two proposals. Though they'll probably still be tweaked a bit it'll be fairly minor & the idea is already conveyed well enough with these :)

Good job :-) But I see the chameleon a bit young for the logo

[stereoknife]

Good job :-) But I see the chameleon a bit young for the logo

Haha. A little bit, though it can be somewhat remedied by making the eye smaller. However the head is one of the most distinctive parts of geeko and making it big helps make it more recognizeable in smaller sizes, though maybe it was a bit too much in the original.

[hellcp]

Still trying to figure it out, some more things I came up with.

[ddemaio]

I like the look of the top @hellcp. The botom one looks a bit like the Fedora in reverse. Some sort of rebranding might be appropriate when ALP rolls out. It would be the time to do it for sure.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3f/Fedora_logo.svg

[cxbignekoc]

i try another style...so the Logo Design Question is still running actually for open suse so ... i got login issues
just drop it here maybe later i can login and try my luck...