Re: Logo/image guidelines

[Murray Cumming <murrayc murrayc com>]

On Fri, 2005-07-08 at 09:30 +1200, John Williams wrote:
> > I hope our designers can come up with a fuller brand image. That might
> > include our brand colors, fonts, etc.
> >
> > Or, it would be nice if people provided links to examples of corporate
> > brand guidelines.
>
> What I want to say is slightly off-topic and I risk exposing myself as
> an ivory-tower acadamic, as well as a marketing suit.  Sigh.  Such is
> life.
>
> Companies spend lots of money developing branding materials, but they
> spend even more ***testing*** them.  It doesn't matter if the people in
> the company like the logo, colours etc., what matters is WHAT IT SAYS TO
> CUSTOMERS.  What impressions does it give?  What is the image that forms
> in the mind of the customer?
>
> So, let's decide who our customers are (home users, corporates, distros,
> ISVs IIRC) and then test our branding materials on some of them, and see
> what they think.

Our customers are all these people, but it looks like we want to target
a few of them specifically:
http://live.gnome.org/MarketingTeam_2fTargetMarkets
(surely we want fewer primary targets?)

Can you suggest concisely how our marketing might differ if we chose
different primary targets? Will our image really be radically different
or in conflict with other targets?

I personally think we only need to target end users and system
administrators and we'll get everyone else as part of that. But I'm no
marketing expert so I'm happy to defer to any expert who actually gets
the marketing moving.

> I am thinking in particular of (1) distros and (2) potential new users.
> Distros can modify how GNOME looks such that the careful matching of
> colours etc. on the logo can clash with the look-n-feel of the desktop.
>
> Potential new users are a tricky one.  What impression do they form of
> GNOME when they see the logo?  If GNOME was a person, what would they be
> like?  Male, female?  Young, old?  Straight, funky?

Young, helpful, patient, anticipating your needs, not particularly male
or female, just funky enough to be confident of itself.

> I'm going to stop now, as I feel a rant building up.  I hope you get the
> drift of what I am trying to say.

Try to explain the issues to us, and suggest definite actions. There are
many people here who would love to help to put a plan into motion.

-- 
Murray Cumming
murrayc murrayc com
www.murrayc.com
www.openismus.com