Re: GNOME Logo Branding Guidelines Concerns

[Dave Neary <dneary free fr>]

Hi,

Máirín Duffy wrote:
> So for a while now I've been working at establishing a set of guidelines 
> for the GNOME brand, including the GNOME logo. An issue has come up and 
> I wanted to ask you all for your thoughts on it: The GNOME 'sublogo' 
> guidelines [1] may be of concern with respect to the defensibility of 
> the GNOME foot's trademark. (See discussion at [2]).

Yeah - this was a known issue (to me at least) although ugly sublogos
was a bigger concern of mine than weakening the mark.

> I think that a model like Fedora's might be a bit overkill for GNOME's 
> full brand - but it may be useful for the sublogos specifically.

I agree - there is value in having all sublogos centralised and approved
by some people with taste. We should take this out of the hands of the
board if possible, since (IMHO) the board isn't equipped to judge these
kinds of things in general.

> We could set up a sublogo approval email address, and we could state in 
> the guidelines that folks must submit their sublogo designs to that 
> address for final approval before they may use them. I would be willing 
> to handle these approvals - I do so for Fedora's logo now, so I have 
> some experience with this sort of thing.

Yay for volunteers!

> (1) Are there any objections to the proposed sublogo guidelines? Do you 
> think they are too restrictive or too permissive?

No - "do what you want, but tell us about it and listen to our feedback"
is about right.

> (2) Do you think the 'creative' sublogos approach is entirely more risk 
> than it is worth? Should we just not allow for sublogos, or only allow 
> for sublogos that use the 'stock' GNOME foot logomark?

No - we should definitely allow sublogos. Allowing people to hack on the
mark is worth more than protecting the mark.

> (3) Do you think having an approval system for sublogos would be an 
> acceptable requirement? Should we contact a lawyer to get some advice?

Yes, I think it would be sufficient. The mark is all about quality
assurance - approval fulfills that need as far as I'm concerned. Lawyers
may disagree :)

Cheers,
Dave.

-- 
David Neary
bolsh gnome org