[Advocacy] Some Variations On A Vorbis Logo

[Monty]

On Mon, Mar 21, 2005 at 10:10:23AM +0000, Daniel James wrote:
> Hi Monty,
> 
> > Something in the geek nature feels it has mastered visual design at
> > the point it feels comfortable with the mechanics of Photoshop or
> > Gimp.
> 
> This could equally be said of the existing logo designs, given their 
> unsuitability for branding purposes. I have over ten years design 
> experience and have been running my own design business since 1996, 
> so I believe I'm in a position to comment on that.

Yes, I count that as having paid appropriate dues.  

The current logo was essentially a personal logo I'd been using for
the better part of the past 20 years.  It wasn't supposed to be an
anything-mark.  When I started the company, we 'temporarily' borrowed
the logo and name.  When it came time to select real logos/naming, I
put it up to a vote amongst the membership of Xiph at the time.  We
voted to keep the name and logos... a failure of democracy (I was the
only person who voted for something else :-)  

> >  I didn't solicit input because, in this case, I don't want much
> > input.
> 
> That's the biggest problem for Xiph advocates, in a nutshell.

Well, we'd solicited outside input, were [overall but not entirely]
dissatisfied with what appeared over the next few years, then last
year hired a professional firendly/known to Xiph to Get The Job Done
(and hopefully Get It Done Right).  The money involved isn't a token
amount, but it's well under market rate, essentially a donation.

Being certain of what direction I want to go looks dismissive when I
don't spend time explaining the reasoning and history behind the
direction.  I don't mean to appear dismissive (because we can all
agree that's a pretty damaging image to project), but the volunteers
at the core of Xiph have families and day jobs, myself included... so
I limit myself to speaking to points that are important.  This has
become important, so I'm saying something now.

FWIW, If renaming Vorbis were a matter up for discussion (it's not,
despite the popularity of the subject in unsolicited mail we get), and
I put it up to a vote, the current leader for a new name would be
'FreeMP3'.  The people I trust and the people I listen to are the ones
who have demonstrated the value of their advice.  Unfortunately, that
does mean there are plenty of worthy people I don't yet know are worth
heeding, but it's probably a better situation than listening to
everybody who sounds like they know what they're talking about.

Monty