New uPortal Logo Contest

I like the idea of a new logo, and simplicity is great -- but to me, this looks a lot like the upromise logo -- http://www.upromise.com :/ sorry

Hand slipped while trying to add a comment, and I accidentally deleted Collier's very good post. I believe his points were: when designing it might be time to examine, but the current logo should also be a choice and some guidelines he uses:

• reproducible in black & white
• limited color palette (cheaper to print)
• printable without dithering
• scalable to low resolutions (e.g. web footer)
• scalable to large banner or posters
• works on any color background
• screenable onto t-shirts, mugs, etc.

From my RSS feed here was Collier's original comment:
I'm not 100% convinced that a new logo is needed... but I'm curious to see what people come up with. I would just ask that the current logo is included in any list of logos we vote on so that the community has the option of staying with the new logo and isn't forced to pick something new.

That said, it might be a good idea to lay out some requirements for the logo. I usually use the following criteria when designing a logo, keeping in mind the variety of uses that need to be accomodated:

• It should be able to be reduced cleanly to two colors, black and white, with no dithering.
• It should look acceptable on a wide range of background colors or provide alternate versions that do.
• The number of colors used should be limited. Its expensive to print things in color.
• It can be scaled down to fit in a page footer.
• It can be scaled up to be printed on 50ft banners.
• It can be embroidered on a polo shirt.
• It can be screened on a t-shirt, pen, cigarette lighter, or conference tote bag.

Just some initial thoughts.

I tend to agree that the logo could use an update.  Perhaps uPortal 3 going GA would be an appropriate time...

 some possible inspiration:  http://web2logo.com/

Hi All. I just discovered all these great comments after I already posted a related page. Sorry about that – still getting the hang of confluence

Maybe I should consolidate that page with this one?

I agree with Bill (and in a conversation I had with Nathan offline) that uPortal 3.0 might be an appropriate time to introduce a new logo for uPortal.  I don't think it would "fracture our thought base".  At least I don't view it any worse as just introducing a new logo altogether.

One thing I would like to see, more then a new logo, however, is a new theme.  The default uPortal 2.x brown theme is not very good.  I could see some very real reasons to want a new logo, when it comes time to design a new theme.  And designing a new theme is something very likely to occur in uPortal 3.

Just to clarify, I didn't mean to step on any toes with my logo post. I hope you didn't take it that way Jason.

My thoughts around the logo at this point are based on the reasons logos traditionally get redesigned:

1. Merger/acquisition
2. Change in organizational or product strategy
3. Previous design had a poor technical execution

Of these three reasons to change a logo (and there may be others that I'm not aware of), only reason #3 is relevant to the current design. There's no doubt in my mind that there are technical problems with it from an objectively esthetic, application, and possibly communication perspective. This reason alone could be enough for us to want to modify the logo, but before we do it, I think it's important to understand what those problems are.

For starters, I'd like to see a discussion that centers on what the communication goals of the logo are. What are the tangible and intangible messages? Who exactly is the target audience today and two years from now? Since the logo is a product logo rather than a company logo... what type of brand architecture are we dealing with (monolithic, endorsed, brand family) in regards to the parent brand: JA-SIG?

In other words, let's define the problem before proposing a solution.

With that said, with UP3, we would add reason #2 into the mix – which makes for a stronger argument to consider a logo update since the motivations are more obvious to the market.

That's why I posted a separate UP3 Logo page as part of the UP3 theme/skin design work I've been involved in. And while I didn't go into too much detail as far as "defining the problem" on that page, I do hope I touched on a few key points that add some contexts to the direction I went in.