[Advocacy] Re: Branding, logos and badges (was iAudio says 'Ogg' not 'Vorbis')

[Aaron Whitehouse]

Daniel James wrote:

> It's ironic that you're down on amateurs, given that many 
> contributions to Xiph.org projects are unpaid. Of course I support 
> your right to choose the branding that you think is the best. 

With all due respect, Daniel, I think that this was a bit unfair to post
back to the list. I don't think that one can advocate, on the one hand,
the necessity of professional branding and on another denounce quality
control of brands submitted.

>>Attached is a both the initial branding package from last year as
>>well as some of the more refined/finished logos from the most
>>recent deliverable.

As an aside, Monty, I would have quite liked to have received your
response as the person who had initially brought the issue up; I was
left wondering where the roadblock was found.

> I'm afraid that you've proved the point that you don't understand 
> hardware branding. These logos are fine for a website but of no use 
> to a hardware OEM - too complicated, too many colours, and you can't 
> recognise them at a small size.

This is a valid point. Above all else the 'badges' need to be
recognisable and simple enough to be reproducible at a small size.

>>I'm afraid we'll both ignore you unless you have something
>>constructive to offer as well.

I too would like to help solve this. I was hoping for an 'official'
response in order to attempt to remedy the situation. I believe that my
first email was written in a very pragmatic way in order to try and get
this problem solved quickly.

I think the first step is to decide whether we (the Xiph 'stakeholders')
want a set of badges representing the level of Xiph codec support, or
whether we are content to have a generic logo to just say that the
device implements something. Perhaps the first approach is preferable
(with continuity through the designs) to provide badges that are good to
a minimum size of 20x20mm (for example - these could be used on the
boxes of players, manufacturer's websites etc.) and the latter for those
situations as posited by Daniel; 4mmx4mm monochrome. It would be very
nice to offer a suite of graphics to manufacturers etc. (on the
satisfaction of some quality controls). These are the issues which I was
hoping to determine with my previous email.

Once an approach is decided then we need to get the actual graphics
designed. If the community wasn't able to deliver on this then we need
to come up with an alternative approach; I am not surprised that graphic
designers are not overly represented among Xiph fans. I used to work at
a design firm and they are often receptive to do work for free, or at a
discounted price, in exchange for high quality advertising. I would
imagine that a suite of new designs would likely be displayed on the
main Vorbis/Xiph pages. If we could go to design firms and ask them to
design something, for a charity, and that we would place a line, below
the new logos, on the site saying:
"New logos kindly designed by <link>"
I think that some would go for it (the site is quite high-traffic). I
personally consider this important enough to apply the (very scarce)
funds of the foundation, but acknowledge that, even if they were
available, others would likely disagree.

Step 3 would be to Trademark the new designs. If the designs are
trademarked then they allow the Xiph foundation to more effectively use
the badges/logos for quality control.

Step 4 would be to make the designs available (through the website) and
to be very clear of the conditions which need to be satisfied in order
to use them.

Step 5 would be to contact existing users of Xiph codecs and alert them
to the new logos and request that they move to the new designs.

I believe that one of the Xiph representatives stated (Ralph at Guadec?)
that Xiph is a standards organisation and that their code is merely a
proof of concept necessitated in order to promote those standards. If
that is the case then the key objectives of Xiph should be protection of
the standards and the names, branding and other intellectual property
necessarily interwoven with them. This requires a clear brand and
quality control to prevent dilution of it. Logos are the public face of
your foundation.

Regards,

Aaron Whitehouse

--
http://www.whitehouse.org.nz