Logo

[comradekingu]

Edit: Update, adding the current logo, referenced below:

[ponypower]

Hey @zoff99, I've just read your comment about the logo request. I have a few ideas if you are interested.

[zoff99]

yes any ideas welcome

[ponypower]

I always like to identify an approach on the logo design so whenever I have to make a design decision I will know what direction I gotta go.

Right now there is an outdated Navit base android logo. How about totally changing it and go with something like this:

• The concept is generic some ways but it could be the logo of ZANAVI brand and the android app logo would be based on it, probably with no letters
• The capital letters display reliability, although maybe it is too high-end looking for the current brand. Maybe you gotta consider remaking the UI. I can help with that too.
• The color of the sign comes from the guide-mark of the app. It can be associated with calmness like "don't worry buddy, we will get you there". Most of the navigation apps with a mark like this go with color blue, so it's a cool thing to have this difference from them.

What do you think?

[comradekingu]

However these are existing logos, in the "navigation" sphere:

I think if we meet somewhere in the middle of your effort and mine, a great balance can be struck.

[zoff99]

wow, all good stuff. but don't focus on the green so much. it should stay somewhere in the line of these colors:

android icon is a first priority. for starts it should not go too far from the old one. people should still recognize it

[ponypower]

@zoff99 Huh, ok, that's a legit request. I will go that way then.

@comradekingu Yeah, it's a little too close to those logos. But you've heard the man, we have our directions.

[comradekingu]

@ponypower That would only perpetuate the problem, and thus be at odds with my idea of using my spare time trying to help people.

@zoff99 I can only admire someone's insight into wanting to change it for what it is, but then wonder as to why not into something that it isn't?

[ponypower]

Here is my concept (not finished).

I've tried to use the old elements in the best way possible and put together according to Google's Material Design which is the android style in short. It has its own color palette, so I didn't go with the exact old colors. The whole logo is supposed to look like a folded piece of paper. The orange shape kinda forms a planet. The grey stuff is the road. The blue is the sky. Gray&blue shapes an arrow together. And you have a lurking android :). I will play with the shadows a little bit to get a better look, but overall this is what I put together.

What do you think?

[zoff99]

wow. looks a lot nicer than mine

[comradekingu]

I'm getting folded map, Android, tongue, arrow.

What I like the most is the shape. Starting out at map, it could continue out into arrow. Away with the cumbersome paper map, into digital, off you go.

APK-files are not limited to the Android ecosystem more-so than on a technical basis. To users of Sailfish and Ubuntu Touch that is a distinction which comes at a cost to make. In addition to that, https://developer.android.com/distribute/tools/promote/brand.html

Here is a fairly recent grab of logos used on Android for Googles own.

I'll let the viewer be the judge of what this looks like. Boil it down to the number of shovelware things that all do the same thing, badly, and look the same, and you could juggle logos around indistinguishably without notice. They communicate nothing, other than "me too". Guidelines don't change how things date, rather it excels it. Not being the very best at that won't stand the test of time, it will look period much like the current one, in a similarly nonsensical way. All tour-de-jour elements, that now look the part, will in time be zero content, with all ugly gimmicks added atop.

The guidelines for Android have been frequently wrong, by metric of changing from one to the other, outdated in terms of what Google has done meanwhile, and with respect to the image above, hard to decipher back into what they are telling us now.

Granted, what they have are established and known brands, that sometimes hinders progress enough to cement this mediocrity. Zanavi does not. Keeping ahold of what was, to pretend it worked, or that it could be made to work, begs the question of how could that possibly be made to work, and more importantly as to what the logo is? What is the integral part that makes it unique? Colour-scheme, arrow, guidelines from Google? For all the generic blue-ish arrow Android-logos that could reasonably be expected to do with navigation at the rate of the current logo, it is irrelevant how any of them got there. Get the idea right, make sure it does that one thing you want it to do.

The way I see it more things that add some sort of value towards a greater goal means it is short of unified perfection straight off the bat, because usually they come at the expense of accepting loss for each thing, and then having to tie everything together.

5 minutes down the line, not years, people are going to mentally ask themselves why it is the way it is, rather than how it came to be that way. The story of designing something is interesting, what did you put in? (Reading what you wrote) OK, I get that now that you point it out. Orange breaks it, uniform skies are indistinguishable from what a brown negative space would be. If it was a road, it would be starting off as a bridge, onto a small planet, or something similarly strange.

Edit: I just noticed there is a road in the current logo.

[ponypower]

@zoff99 I've added a little shadow to the logo. If you find it okey I will get you the appropiate format (svg?).

[ponypower]

@comradekingu You have a unique approach on design which is cool. Being different can bring some awesome results. But it feels like you get upset that a "customer" doesn't like what you do. Don't forget that the said customer tells you what he wants and doesn't want and the designers do accordingly. You sound more like an artist who goes his own way and some day some people will find your work and will fall in love with it. But don't expect everyone to do the same.

[zoff99]

nobody here is a customer, it's all voluntary :-)

@ponypower looks great, thanks for your help!

under what license is that logo? what can i do with it. whats credits do i have to give? can i change stuff on it? can i put it into my source repo here on github?

svg will be great. i will most likely remove the android head from the ldpi-icon-version, for small screens. because it will be very small (pixelwise)

[comradekingu]

@ponypower I don't care at all what the proprietor has to say about it. Doing so would be along the line of thinking that made the current logo a bug-report instead of a feature. As for payment, don't care about that either. Just sharing how I think so we can disagree on it. There are no benefits to be had that I can contribute to other than those two.

The opinions of those who see the logo, in being the users of the program, reflects on its profile. The likelihood of running into into a user, or opinion thereof, increases with a good logo and suffers with a bad one.

Edit: I like what I do, and I like what you do too. Spent some time toying with concepts.

[ponypower]

Huh, I don't know much about art licensing yet. I will have to do my research on that. Do you know anything about it related to open source apps?

Basically I made the logo for the Zanavi app. So from a practical point of view I would say the current logo and its previous versions can be used and modified exclusively for the branding of Zanavi. Don't know how the open source feature of Zanavi can overrule this statement the moment it's uploaded to the resource repo. Can you tell me about it?

About credits, I want you to acknowledge that the unnamed designer behind the ponypower username at github.com designed the original logo, whenever it comes up. I guess people here don't really go by their real name. Wherever you do or do not state my username (in the app or elsewhere) is totally up to you.

[I will update my statements when I have a better overlook on these things.]

[zoff99]

basically i am asking: can i change/tweak it? and can i use it? :-)

[ponypower]

Yup :). On the other hand I can change it for you. Right now I have a little issue with the SVG export, that's why I haven't sent it to you yet. And I'm about to create the simplified logo, the front part with rounded edges. Btw how should I upload these files? Does the drag&drop work here with every formats?

[zoff99]

i think its best to fork my repo, than add your files with "git" and make a PR

[ponypower]

Wut? I don't speak that language :) Btw how big is the rush with changing the logo? Is there any anticipated release date of a new version? I'm only asking to schedule my time.

[zoff99]

@ponypower no rush. the next version has some new GUI stuff and Android M stuff. so it will take some more time.

11 -> i started also a discussion about the "green triangle" car icon when navigating

also if you don't speak git: click "fork" on the right top of this page. then you have all ZANavi code under your user. add files there. then press "Pull Request" and it's done.

[freddii]

i think a logo should be simple. simple to remember and simple to understand. you should not need a degree in design to understand it.

[freddii]

[zoff99]

i wonder how that map icon from @ponypower would look if the map was pulled out to the right longer, to maybe also replace the promo image (which has a format of 1024x500 px):

[zoff99]

@ponypower do you have the svgs of your version of the new logo? i have released the new version, so now would be a good time to update to the new logo

[ponypower]

Hey @zoff99, I have no idea how to attach the file so here it is: https://mega.nz/#F!ptoR0JTa!E5VkD3eOQtP1fqyhPpbVmg the webpage shows an incorrect preview so don't worry

[zoff99]

thanks for the file

[zoff99]

@ponypower would you be able to make second version which is wider (horizontally)? that can be used as banner or something like that.

like the logo would pull out to a map-thingy. (the mockup looks a bit like a genital, maybe you can do it better than me)

[ponypower]

The pen*s problem is solved but there is an other big issue here. There are no default fonts saying "ZANAVI" that suit this design. I went through my fonts and the design suck with all of them. This banner idea is cool and everything but it would need a unique font for the 5 letters. That would be some serious work. I guess it would be better just going with the 'text next to the logo'. The font could be "Impact" with a matching grey color for example.

[zoff99]

it should use this font and text: https://cloud.githubusercontent.com/assets/6833516/19443978/e7a5aab2-948e-11e6-9467-e30f98df3f79.png

[zoff99]

nice work. and so quick :-) it looks a bit strange that the right side (android head) is moved up. maybe the right side would look better without the green android head? just let the map-paper end somehow ... ? end or be cut off or torn off not sure

[comradekingu]

If this was indeed a map. would it not fold multiple times over?

[ponypower]

@zoff99 I tried something different since the current font doesn't really suit the design. There is definitelly place for improvement but I hope you like it. What do you think? When there is a new design element, chances are high that it won't suit with the old ones. I guess you should consider leaving the old stuff all together.

In my first comments in this issue I've tried to suggest picking a logo for the brand itself and only then start making anything else would have been the proper approach. Now we are going backwards. It's pretty difficult for me to design a decent banner or a brand logo from an oversimplified app logo. It should have been the other way.

[zoff99]

this looks very good. but i know what you mean. only i am not sure if anybody is willing to put in that huge amount of time, to design a brand and then also desgin the icons, banners, website and look&feel of the app, and map poi-icons.

i think small steps are more reasonable. what do you think?

[zoff99]

i am not attached to the "old stuff" :-) any help is always welcome. i am not a designer, so it's not within my power to make modern designs.

[ponypower]

Okay, small steps then :)

Btw there is an important thing in design. The design gotta reflect the functionality and performance of the app. Underdoing it lowers the interest since the users don't believe it could do much, while overdoing it disappoints the users by not meeting the higher expectations increased by the look of it. So I gotta match the capabilities of the app by the design. Pretty is not enough. Being pretty just right is the key.

[ponypower]

Hi, I have a few new logo sketches based on the banner. Here is the 1st one. I admit it's maybe not that super great but I wanted to show there is progress :)

[ponypower]

New versions of the previous concept. The issue here design-wise is that google's material design cannot be applied fully. There is no place for shadows that would make sense. I'll try to come up with something.

[ponypower]

Updated banner - a little more stylish and logo I had some trouble to come up with a good looking satellite so I just left it out. What do you guys think? Would these be ok for the next release?

[zoff99]

i like the that latest banner but rather with the sattelite. the new icon is really nice. can you make vector versions or all the needed sizes?

[ponypower]

Uh, I guess I gotta come up with a good looking satellite then. Gonna make a dozen variations and pick the best one. Maybe the logo should have it too. Going to post the new versions and the moment you say everything looks cool I'm sending the svg files.

[zoff99]

maybe the icon without the satellite? its a bit too small. also think about icon for ldpi. but you will know better what looks cool. the banner looks better with the satellite in any case.

nice work, thanks for spending your time on this 👍

[zoff99]

i like this combo:

what do you think? can it be used for the website aswell? not only the design but the color scheme?

[ponypower]

I getcha. I'll give it a try to improve the sat. It could use some white color for the balance. If I can make it better I will change the banner and check the logo in ldpi. If not, I will go with your suggestion.

Sure. I can design the website in the same style; forms, colors, everything.

[ponypower]

Hey, I've come up with a new satellite. It took some time to hack the secret nasa database but I think it was worth it. What's your opinion?

[zoff99]

looks cool to me :) does the icon also work on white background? and other background colors?

[ponypower]

I'm not sure if the logo will look good on every background :)

[zoff99]

i like the skulls :-)

[ponypower]

I guess we can say that the logo and the banner are finished. What formats do you want them in; .svg? I'm gonna try to upload them to the repo somehow.

[zoff99]

yes, svg please. as long as inkscape can open them properly. i dont have any other SVG app.

[zoff99]

just fork and make a PR with the files added somewhere