On Wed, 2010-10-27 at 16:11 +0200, Andreas Jaeger wrote:

Since artwork is closely related to marketing - and I forgot to CC marketing, here's a forward...

AJ ---------- Forwarded Message ----------

Subject: [opensuse-artwork] Some notes from the artwork BoF at the openSUSE conference Date: Wednesday 27 October 2010, 16:09:50 From: Andreas Jaeger To: opensuse-artwork@opensuse.org

Here are some notes from the artwork BoF that we had last week.

* How should artwork look? * To market openSUSE, we should have a "corporate identity". This is a recognizable face at different places.

I would probably use the term 'visual identity' and not corporate. It's more ambiguous and probably would fit better in community.

* Corporate identity includes YaST, boot screen, splash screens, wall paper, web presence, banners, posters, flyers... Especially the distribution should have a consistent artwork.

+1. But this should actually be wider, everything that relates concerns to 'openSUSE' as a brand/service should benefit from the points you mention.

* Right now, we have three distinct color palettes: The Novell palette, Jimmac's old palette at http://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Artwork_miscellaneous http://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Artwork_guidelines and the Bento color scheme.

I find this reductive. I would place some trust on Artwork Team and their leader to find the best way.

* Palettes break with using gradients * Nuno: It's important to have a person that understands guidelines and explain them (an editor). This person should sign up on artwork.

This is the usual 'briefing' stuff between a costumer and an advertisement agency. +1 for Nuno.

* Nuno: corporate identity creation takes time. Example: oxygen took more than 2 years to reach a common understanding between the three oxygen designers (everything of it has now been replaced).

I don't know if I agree with Nuno completly on this. I think oxygen started as a sponsored project and later on became trully community work. It's normal in this conditions to have itself repositioned and a new visual identity. We shouldn't probably wait 2 years to make it happen. We can reposition the brand later if required.

* First thing: Marketing team to define target users and needs, then many talks between art and marketing team. Note that context is important, one color on white is different from the same color on black.

I find it cool that marketing defines, but I would like to see some sort of mechanism present to grant artists some freedom for their creations. As I've said in my talk, careful with marketing and innovation. Andreas: about users and needs, in prior to this, we must define our own marketing mix. That should be pretty much the end part of the strategy from my perspective. Do you want me to make this happen and propose an initial sketch for our mix? This is as important as the visual identity of our brand, if not more.

* Suggested next steps: 1. Clear strategy to define messaging. 2. Designer will propose something, 3. Marketing folks will review and iterate process until something appears.

Andreas, one more suggestion on this field, instead of having 3 marketing folks, try to use something like a focus group with users from the targeted audience, and instead of basing the choice on marketing personal needs, base it on the output from that focus group.

* Apple has great guidelines. First to break the guidelines is Apple itself. Guidelines are mainly for external folks.

Guidelines are an obstacle for innovation ;) (as marketing is).

* Art team asks: Size, Message, DPI, Text; Colour requirements (black & white, full colour) * Get all done artwork in subversion/git - and give all artists access to playground.

-- Andreas Jaeger, Program Manager openSUSE, aj@{novell.com,opensuse.org} Twitter: jaegerandi | Identica: jaegerandi SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Markus Rex, HRB 16746 (AG Nürnberg) Maxfeldstr. 5, 90409 Nürnberg, Germany GPG fingerprint = 93A3 365E CE47 B889 DF7F FED1 389A 563C C272 A126 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-artwork+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-artwork+help@opensuse.org

----------------------------------------- -- Andreas Jaeger, Program Manager openSUSE, aj@{novell.com,opensuse.org} Twitter: jaegerandi | Identica: jaegerandi SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Markus Rex, HRB 16746 (AG Nürnberg) Maxfeldstr. 5, 90409 Nürnberg, Germany GPG fingerprint = 93A3 365E CE47 B889 DF7F FED1 389A 563C C272 A126

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