[advocacy-discuss] Re: [ogb-discuss] Re: [osol-discuss] Logo/Mascot for OpenSolaris

[Bryan Allen]

On Jun 26, 2007, at 6:52 AM, Dirk Wetter wrote:
>
> Some of the suggested mascots -- sorry I don't want to step on  
> anybody toes
> here -- do not come IMHO not very positive across:
>
> shark: predator fish, sometimes a danger to humans
> ninja: ancient Japanese assassin
> elephant: biggest animal, slow moving, was once close to extinction
> polar bear: very dangerous predator (ask Canadians), also symbol in  
> Europe
> for climate change
> racoon: sometimes ransacking garbage cans
> mouse: sometimes spotted in NYCs hotels ;-)

...

> So, yes, I think Sun should spend money for this, as I don't think
> tecchies are very good at this... The "only point" which IMO is  
> difficult
> is finding the right designer and telling him what the mascot is  
> supposed
> to express.

I can bribe a buddy of mine with boozohol, though if Actual Real  
Money were involved all the better.

Examples of his existing logos:

  * Perl Email Project: http://emailproject.perl.org/
  * http://firepear.net/
  * Olive RSS Newsreader: http://mdxi.collapsar.net/hacks/olive/

Other examples of his work:

  * http://www.amongthechosen.com/
  * http://www.deadcityradio.org/
  * http://mercury.mirrorshades.org/viz/

Stay away from his Deviant Art page if you value your sanity/job. ;-)

His existing thought for a logo would be a sun-in-a-box sort of  
thing, orange/blue motif.

When considering what a good OSOL logo/mascot might look like, it  
doesn't hurt to look at what everyone else has:

  * OpenBSD's Puffy is pretty great: http://www.openbsd.org/art4.html
  * NetBSD's flag-thing: http://www.netbsd.org/gallery/logos.html
  * FreeBSD's weird shiny-demon-ball-thing: http://www.freebsd.org/ 
logo.html
  * Apple's Darwin has Hexley the Platypus, which totally rocks:  
http://www.hexley.com/

  * Belenix has a stylized sun god: http://www.genunix.org/ 
distributions/belenix_site/themes/belenix/logo.png
  * Nexenta/GNUSolaris has a gnoshing giraffe: http:// 
www.gnusolaris.org/giraffe.png

  * Linux obviously has Tux: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Tux.png
  * Debian has the swirl-thing: http://www.debian.org/logos/
  * The Fedora logo process was very po-mo: http://www.redhat.com/ 
magazine/014dec05/features/fedora/
  * Ubuntu just wants everyone to get along: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ 
Artwork/Official
  * openSUSE have their happy little chameleon: http:// 
en.opensuse.org/Artwork:Brand

  * GNOME is part of the Foot Clan: http://www.gnome.org/~jdub/random/ 
logo/
  * KDE is geared up: http://kde-artists.org/node/125
  * E's stylized e/sun flare: http://enlightenment.org/p/index/d/ 
logo.png

  * PostgreSQL remembers to be scared of mice: http:// 
www.postgresql.org/community/propaganda.html
  * MySQL will trade tricks for fish: http://www.theregister.co.uk/ 
2001/08/01/logowatch_mysql_swims/

Out of all of those, Puffy and Hexley (even if he technically should  
have been a bulldog) stand out as the best cartoon mascots. Both are  
very bang on for their projects (Puffy: Blowfish/crypto/security;  
Hexley: Darwin's Bulldog/platypus is a weird little animal, much like  
Darwin OS), recognizable, can be stylized/posed/etc.

The FreeBSD demon-head-ball-thing and the NetBSD flag have never made  
sense to me. The Debian swirl makes some sense in the context of  
smoke coming out of a genie lamp. The Belenix logo is pretty great  
even if it lacks any sort of philosophical message (that I can  
decipher).

In trying to think of a good mascot which is not obviously derivative  
of other brands (Coca Cola polar bears, etc), a starfish came to mind.

The basic design is clear, given it would be star (sun) shaped.  
Starfish also have a few interesting traits:

  * They have very complex nervous systems, but no real central  
authority (as Peter Watts' describes them, a starfish is a true  
democracy). Each nerve cluster is basically autonomous; they just  
tend to go in the same direction a the same time (towards food).
  * Some species can also regenerate from a single ray/arm (forking!).
  * If a starfish is damaged, it and another damaged starfish can  
merge into a new whole (merging!).
  * Starfish can reproduce both sexually (by releasing eggs into the  
water) and asexually (the previously mentioned regeneration).
  * They can fast for long periods of time (read: They are hardy  
little bastards).
  * Their locomotive system (water vascular) is complex, but built up  
from simpler systems.

The symbolism in terms of Open Source development is pretty clear.  
Many of those traits are also useful for technologies OpenSolaris is  
built from. Unfortunately, starfish have no face, so they're  
difficult to anthropomorphize and therefore make better logos than  
mascots.

As such, and based on my experiences with OpenSolaris, the defined  
traits one might want from a given mascot are:

  * Robust
  * Observable
  * Stable
  * Social

Give those four items, the first critter that springs to mind are  
ants. Ants are totally awesome!

  * Ants create very complex systems from very trivial behaviors.
  * They are social creatures (though obviously in a much different  
way than felines or primates are social).
  * The social structure is in essence caste-based, which works well  
with OSOL's own structure (top-down with autonomous workers) in that  
both are compartmentalized but working within the same framework.
  * As "A Bug's Life" shows, they are pretty easy to anthropomorphize.

Bees are probably a much better fit, however:

  * Much like ants, honey bees have extremely complex social behaviors.
  * Give us honey. Mm. Honey.
  * Associated with the sun.
  * Seen as less of a pest than ants.
  * Also easy to anthropomorphize.
  * Blue and orange motif is probaby a good fit for a stylized bee  
logo (in addition to a cartoon mascot of some sort).

Both ants and bees may be somewhat overdone, however. What other  
animals display similar characteristics but are perhaps off the  
beaten marketing path?

Cheers.
--
bda
cyberpunk is dead. long live cyberpunk.