11/13 Logo/Brand Redesign

amaliebarras commented 8 years ago

Open Austin needs a new logo design/brand design

Our current logo is dated and needs a refresh! With increased awareness of Open Austin, established alignment with Code for America, and our website redesign, we felt it was great timing to work on our image. Open Austin will still keep doing the same work we have been doing and stay comitted to open-source, open data, and open government in Austin, Texas.

Our current logos and colors:

copy-open_austin_banner_400x80 There are no other brand documents that I am aware of.

Moving forward we need:

a logo that is scalable and available for b&w printing(no grey or midtones and full color
A new color palette for use on the web and in print
new typography for use in marketing material for both print and web

We have a pinterest that is currently acting as a mood board for logo and design inspiration. View it HERE. If you would like to be added please ping @amaliebarras or @Victoriaodell.

Getting to a good where we fell we can go to production for shirts by 11/13 is desired but not a hard deadline.

"For those interested in working on logo / tshirt: https://style.codeforamerica.org/ We aren’t bound to any rules, but just some inspiration ~"

A great presentation on logo design http://www.crestwoodschools.org/userfiles/805/Logo-presentation-1.pdf

twentysixmoons commented 8 years ago

I updated the original comment and outlined what we will need in the case that anyone else will want to contribute or has ideas for this project.

mateoclarke commented 8 years ago

Here is a repo with more versions of the existing logo.

twentysixmoons commented 8 years ago

openaustin_logo_exploration_v1

This was one of my first thoughts. Not refined exactly but I think this illustrates my concept.

luqmaan commented 8 years ago

Why a star?

luqmaan commented 8 years ago

Lets explore the pentagram theme a bit more. How is this? :trollface:

twentysixmoons commented 8 years ago

You're such a troll. A star because Texas? Our capital has a woman at the top of it holding a star. It's an obvious symbol.
:star: :star2: :hankey: Plus it's scalable and still incorporates the div tag things. W/o a closed one because it's ~open~ Austin

twentysixmoons commented 8 years ago

An interation of the previous image. Colors are changable of course~ This one aligns more with the Code for America logo openaustin_logo_exploration_v2

luqmaan commented 8 years ago

A star because Texas?

:+1: Ah okay. Now I get it.

twentysixmoons commented 8 years ago

openaustin_logo_exploration_v3

More Variations on the Star thing.

twentysixmoons commented 8 years ago

:thought_balloon: :thought_balloon: :thought_balloon: Just thoughts.

I like the idea of having a symbol that can scale. Right now we have a word mark type thing and it wouldn't work too well as a favicon or on small scale. Unless we do a shorthand type thing and make it "" but then i think it loses it's meaning some.

I thought a badge type logo would be cool but then scaling becomes an issue again.

twentysixmoons commented 8 years ago

Also best to find fonts for the logo with https://www.google.com/fonts This we can ensure that the type we use is web safe. It's better to have the same or simliar type for the brand extensions that we use on the logo.

I've been using Open Sans but I'm liking more geometric "O"s so want to play around with more options. Sans-serif is better than serif for web but I think opening up to a slab-serif(which is so Tejas) we would be fine too.

twentysixmoons commented 8 years ago

This is just a brain dump. openaustin_logo_exploration_v4

I want to do some more exploration this week. Also, I prefer "Open Austin" to "Open ATX" because I think having both can cause confusion.

luqmaan commented 8 years ago

:+1:

Not a fan of the digital typefaces.

mateoclarke commented 8 years ago

The star reminds me of this redesign concept for the City of Austin flag: https://medium.com/@michaelkriegshauser/texans-love-their-flags-b5a2b1b9c524#.9dcef1a6y

mateoclarke commented 8 years ago

I like the Lamp of Knowledge as a symbol. May be too radical of a departure but it symbolizes the quest for wisdom. And (sun)light is a common symbol in transparency and open gov. Just a thought to play with.

amaliebarras commented 8 years ago

O hi thread

^ I like the sunlight direction a lot.

I actually kind of like the 8-bit typeface, it's playful but hard to read. I also really like the OA with no line in the A, it's modern but professional and recognizable... If I see "OA" I know what's goin on

sideways idea

I'm not also crazy about the star though. one, because star reminds me more of Texas than Austin, and two, because it feels like it covers the "Austin" part but not the "Open" part.

Maybe that's fine! What are we trying to say w/ the logo?

One idea I had for the logo was to represent the policy / hack ecosystem as supporting and fueling each other. Like the icon for recycling has the arrows in a triangle? I tried sketching but it didn't work out, dunno if I have the chops.

mateoclarke commented 8 years ago

Yeah, thinking out loud... :speech_balloon:

I think the star is a nice simple symbol. But it is pretty ubiquitous and as a stand alone symbol, I'm not the biggest fan. I like the spirit of splicing the inside angles to make it "open", but that does give the pentagram effect that Luq pointed out. So the question around the star, is how to make a very common symbol for all things Texas more specific to us. I like bats more than stars as an Austin-y symbol

I'm not a big fan of the 8-bit typeface as a main logo. I think it can be fun for one-off use (like for an event), but I'd get sick off looking at it all the time.

I like a lot of the stuff you (@victoriaodell) pinned. I especially can see an unique symbol for openness and connections coming from this droplet being morphed into an 'O'.

mateoclarke commented 8 years ago

If the droplet become an O in open. I can then see a bat becoming an A in Austin. Random thought...

twentysixmoons commented 8 years ago

I too like the bat~ Def want to experiment more. All this feedback is greatt. Keep it up~

twentysixmoons commented 8 years ago

Really quick mock of potential bat. Obs need to be refined

openaustin_logo_exploration_v5

twentysixmoons commented 8 years ago

Bear with me on these quick iterations. I'm throwing stuff at a wall and seeing what will stick. openaustin_logo_exploration_v6

mateoclarke commented 8 years ago

I dig that! At first, I thought the brackets, curly braces, parens, etc was too much. But in this version, you can barely notice and it stand alone clearly as a bat. :+1:

twentysixmoons commented 8 years ago

Still brainstorming some more. I'd like to see if I can fit an "A" or "O" in there somewhere. I got distracted when I was working on the homepage cause this issue for branding is :fire: .

amaliebarras commented 8 years ago

Just messing around, appropriating vicky's curly braces idea with the comment about having the O and A! what about diz guy?

amaliebarras commented 8 years ago

Round two with less awful colors

mateoclarke commented 8 years ago

screen shot 2015-11-13 at 2 54 40 pm

An "open" O + Vickie's bat

amaliebarras commented 8 years ago

More iterations on this lil guy

amaliebarras commented 8 years ago

real bat wings instead of the curly braces?

twentysixmoons commented 8 years ago

AI PDF files of current exploration pages!

open_Austin_logo_exploratoin_v5.pdf OpenAustin_logo_exploration_v4.pdf

benguhin commented 8 years ago

Here's some variations on the bracketbat:

open_austin_logo_exploration_v6-03

Ai PDF (creative cloud 2014): open_Austin_logo_exploratoin_v6.pdf EPS: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0AB0knkJkx0cFNDZHJNc1pkaHc/view?usp=sharing

mateoclarke commented 8 years ago

B!

luqmaan commented 8 years ago

B also.

We could use J when we're angry about something.

twentysixmoons commented 8 years ago

More contribution from attendee, Tarissa

bats.pdf

twentysixmoons commented 8 years ago

This is a breakaway from bracket bat but thoughts? It's based on the "Open Source Initiative" logo. I was thinking keyhole or geometric shape of O and A stacked on each other. So like "Unlocking data/gov in ATX" or "unlocking the cities potential".

twentysixmoons commented 8 years ago

Moar bats

twentysixmoons commented 8 years ago

I like the scalabilitly of this one and I think it can be a badge also

twentysixmoons commented 8 years ago

Could keep exploring this route and try different bat shapes Try to make it less batman like.

twentysixmoons commented 8 years ago

A quick simplification of an earlier iteration. line weight changes/edge clean up can happen after we agree on a concept.

I keep thinking batman though

twentysixmoons commented 8 years ago

quick Iteration on Keyhole bat

twentysixmoons commented 8 years ago

Didn't come to any solid resolution. Here is a dump of pieces and shapes I've been playing with. I can upload sketches later. OpenAustin_logo_exploration_v7.pdf

mapineda commented 8 years ago

Big fan of this one. I think its sleek. screen shot 2015-11-23 at 2 17 41 pm

twentysixmoons commented 8 years ago

@mapineda I wanted the designer to push that one further and started messing with it myself some too. I like the shape but I don't think it looks a little dark.

twentysixmoons commented 8 years ago

twentysixmoons commented 8 years ago

The line of thinking for the latest iteration. Trying to consolidate what the original logo had going.

twentysixmoons commented 8 years ago

More iterations

mateoclarke commented 8 years ago

I really like the first one you posted with orange and grey.

I also like the version with the circle and the negative space.

Better direction than the bat. Sorry bracket bat :cry:

twentysixmoons commented 8 years ago

:+1: @mateoclarke

I want to have a presentation on Monday about it. Thoughts? I'm meeting again with one of my design friends to get some feedback.

mateoclarke commented 8 years ago

Yeah, let's plan on that.

Another silly idea, thinking about http://www.responsivelogos.co.uk/: What happens if you start with "OPEN :star:USTIN" where the logo replaces the "A". Then you shrink a bit to the star above text, then you shrink to just the star. Maybe a dumb idea

twentysixmoons commented 8 years ago

I could see that working better if the ">" was the top point of the star rather than the right point.

twentysixmoons commented 8 years ago

:wind_chime:

open-austin / org