Re: [Cbor] CBOR logo experiment

Carsten Bormann <cabo@tzi.org> Sun, 31 May 2020 01:13 UTC

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From: Carsten Bormann <cabo@tzi.org>
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Date: Sun, 31 May 2020 03:13:11 +0200
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To: Jonathan Beri <jmberi@gmail.com>
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Subject: Re: [Cbor] CBOR logo experiment
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Hi Jonathan,

> On 2020-05-30, at 19:21, Jonathan Beri <jmberi@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> <image.png>

(Insert apologies if, at this time of the day, my autopilot is automatically switching into prof-talks-to-student mode here.  I’ve been chided for that before.  Then mix in the Whitsunday mood…)

So what is the message that you are trying to convey with this logo?
Let me try to guess through the eyes of a random instance of a persona looking at data representation formats.

We have the base form of the logo, which looks like some old-fashioned (or really, outdated?), 1950’s, FORTRANy thing; black and white of course.
It seems that ancient logo bequeathed from the ancestors then has incurred some damage through transmission errors and looks a bit unstable now.  Needs lots of cleanup before use.
Not good for the squeaky clean product (security, banking, …) I’m building right now.

To provide some contrast, let me do a quick proposal for a list of branding properties that a CBOR logo maybe should convey (or at least not actively counteract):

— stable
— efficient, concise, … (I think that’s where the image is closest)
— and related to that: somewhat minimal, but not simpler
— approachable, friendly, easy to use
— open for new business (extensible, with low ceremony for that)

It probably would require a genius to convey all of these properties in one logo.
I’m not that genius, so for cbor.me I settled with the same basic idea you used (just say CBOR), and just threw in the font Palatino and the color #663399 (please excuse my rusty HTML if you do examine the site).
That’s where I stopped…

Yes, it requires a lot of background to even see in what ways that is actually somewhat minimal (history questions: What is (was) minimal about #663399 [1]?  What is (was) almost minimal about Palatino [2]?).

So I’d love to see if someone came up with something better.

If you are looking for something completely different: we also have Stefanie Gerdes’ design for a sea boar [3].  But that is maybe more of a mascot than a logo.  I’d like that in plush.

Grüße, Carsten

PS.: Here are the answers for the two history questions, and a pointer to the sea boar, in case you care:

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_colors#Web-safe_colors
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PostScript_fonts#Core_Font_Set
[3]: http://www.tzi.de/~cabo/sea-boar.png