Design Forgejo's visual identity and branding #15
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opened 5 months ago by circlebuilder
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Reference: forgejo/meta#15
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Collect inputs of what is needed for best results (like Name, draft content, thoughts on positioning, project direction, desired culture, community vibe and governance, etc.) and the people willing to work on this (UX, graphics design).
Remember that David Revoy has very kindly offered his help, but we do not know when he has time, and any of this input available then is a boon.
Or just take a look at https://99designs.co.uk/blog/logo-branding/how-to-create-a-brand-style-guide/ :)
@Ryuno-Ki do you have the bandwidth to lead this?
Frankly, I lack the experience in leading it. I know what to expect, but I'm not skilled enough yet to create it.
Perhaps we should reach out to mray? I think he's done quite a few designs for various projects.
@mray@social.tchncs.de
I will reach out to http://fixate.it/ who work with https://opencraft.com/ and did https://opensourcemasterclass.org/
Mail sent today
A subset of this task is designing a logo for which I created a new task. I'm not sure it can be completed before the launch but I'm willing to give it a try.
I really like what foxlet did for the homepage and that got me thinking. It takes time to work on a good visual identity. And rushing it before the launch is not a good idea.
Would it be a good idea to just launch with a home page that is deliberately and temporarily a nice collage of existing elements? Essentially what foxlet did. Very Free Software style.
A launch like this is a unique opportunity. You will never get more eyes on the project and curious to check out differences between Gitea, ever again.
Not just eyes.. maintainers, contributors, community members coming in. And you are going to media, be on youtube, mentioned in blog posts, etc. Which will live on the web for a long time to come.
You are making a "first impression" and those are major important.
Consider you are going on a blind date and think "Well, I did not really make clothing choice and haircut style, dunno what perfume to wear. I just go with what I usually wear, though I really want to change my looks. But.. On the next date there'll be ample opportunity to show my good tastes".
Being a blind date there's some tension and anticipation, excitement.. and Expectations. It is best not to under-deliver :)
If someome is committed to drive a visual identity and branding for the fork to completion, my gut feeling is that it will require at least two calendar months (early January 2023) and possibly four (early March 2023).
I think all other tasks for the launch can realistically be completed before December 1st. If you have doubts about one of them, please let me know.
I also think there is a difficult choice to make:
Nah. Visual identity is same as software. First prototype it.. Hone it over time. Start with a Minimum Viable Visible Identity (Pull a MIVV'y 😉 ). Doesn't have to be perfect right away, but just good enough.
I trust you on that: you have expertise that I don't. Now the question is ... what can be achieved as a first sensible step and who's going to drive that to completion before the launch?
A couple of thoughts from my Matrix comments on potential colour palettes:
I suggest a new issue is created to define the first iteration that can be completed before the launch.
Here it is codename/meta#27
dachary referenced this issue 5 months agoFor the record, in the chatroom:
@circlebuilder do you have any update?
Playing into tone of voice:
SocialCoding/gitea-open-letter#97
I'm having trouble visualizing how this will sound, can you give an example?
For instance
would be
Oh. I messed the update up then, huh? 😿
The current interims logo is resembling the git fork icon. It's rounded nature emphasizes a soft fork.
So not having sharp corners might be something we want to keep in the visual identity.
Not at all! That's part of what I meant when I wrote that I like your style.
Third person sounds better to me. Not "us" and "we". Though maybe that could still be used elsewhere in different contexts if it gives a better more intimate ring to the text.
@dachary I commented on the logo issue about best way to involve David Revoy.. i.e. prepare so he can immediately start sketching. He's obviously incredibly busy in his day-to-day activities already.
To me it sounds a bit cold / formal (not just the use of the third person, but also the passive voice). But maybe that's just me – happy to go with whatever style people prefer 😀
You may be right @caesar .. tbh I have to see it on the totality of a page design to really be able to give good feedback on the whole impression it conveys.
Just for me to learn, whether it could benefit from more explaining:
Do you know what is meant with „Tone of Voice”?
@circlebuilder David Revoy showed up in the chatroom today ❇️ Feel like a miracle happened.
He proposed a Squirrel mascot, here are the notes:
Design Codename's visual identity and brandingto Design Forgejo's visual identity and branding 4 months agoHere is the sketch David shared on Matrix (I hope he doesn't mind me sharing here):
I really like the squirrel.
I would prefer we stick with gender neutral. I don't see how we can make an animal like a squirrel look female (or male) without the use of cultural gender stereotypes.
And the more evolved WIP is...
And the beautiful Hero image design by @foxlet:
Peertube website got a redesign. There's a nice blog post mentioned about the rationale. We can take inspiration here for own visual identity. First glance there looks to be a lotta good to take ideas from..
See: https://framablog.org/2022/11/29/to-understand-and-get-started-with-peertube-check-out-the-new-joinpeertube-org/
Based on my latest wordmark proposal in #23 I created the following mockups based on @foxlet's hero image design:
or with orange text:
In #23 I gave my preference for @foxlet logo design, but it would be good to contrast it with the above hero designs (which look quite good), so the variations can be compared in this context as well.
@foxlet the fur color of our mascotte in this design is completely washed out (turned greyscale). This looks great in this hero image. But if the mascotte is used later on against a light background the brown tinted color scheme becomes 'in-your-face' and doesn't match the color scheme of this hero design. This may be solved by showing a tiny bit more fur color in the hero 🤔
There are other items to rework the logo or find a name to the mascot
The Forgejo branding is documented.
Is there still a need to keep this open?
I think the main work here is completed; if any further changes are desired specific issues such as the ones you've linked to are the way to go.
(If anyone disagrees feel free to reopen.)