[|] Smalltalk logo - Smalltalk

Well, a lot has been said (and done; see the graphical suggestions)
about a Smalltalk logo. So let me wrap up (and please correct me if
something is missing):

- We need a textual representation
- We need two graphical representations: b/w and color
- The graphical representation must be scalable
- It needs a "cuteness" effect
- It should be easy to use for merchandising (don't forget all those
meetings, research conferences,... where we want to give away mugs,
keychains, toys,... or a "Smalltalk Store" for these goodies)

As James Robertson already said: "What does the penguin <snip>"

So I suggest we choose something similar in spirit, e.g. a squirrel:

- Cute "small" animal
- Starts with the letter S

I believe right now way to much emphasis is put on the first item
("textual representation"); we should not forget the other items.

As a further suggestion:
- What do/did other communities do (C, C++, Pascal, ...)?
- Do they even have this "slick, gorgeous, unmistakably recognizable logo"?

At least when I started programming (a long while ago) I was not aware
of any "C logo". I also agree with Mue that we don't need anything
violent: Smalltalk (at least to me) is simple, beautiful, elegant,
friendly and peaceful (as in "peace of mind")

Mike

How about a dolphins nose under the "Smalltalk Ball", The ball could be
replaced with the "Globe". It could be just the nose + a little of the
dolphin positioned diagonally upwards under the ball, or a whole of the
dolphin, The ball could have St written on it

- It would be cute
- Dolphins are OK in b/w (grey)
- Textual -> st
....
Except that it could be suggestive ... towards "A" product

regards
sm

Mike Bielser wrote:
> Well, a lot has been said (and done; see the graphical suggestions)
> about a Smalltalk logo. So let me wrap up (and please correct me if
> something is missing):
>
> - We need a textual representation
> - We need two graphical representations: b/w and color
> - The graphical representation must be scalable
> - It needs a "cuteness" effect
> - It should be easy to use for merchandising (don't forget all those
> meetings, research conferences,... where we want to give away mugs,
> keychains, toys,... or a "Smalltalk Store" for these goodies)
>
> As James Robertson already said: "What does the penguin <snip>"
>
> So I suggest we choose something similar in spirit, e.g. a squirrel:
>
> - Cute "small" animal
> - Starts with the letter S
>
> I believe right now way to much emphasis is put on the first item
> ("textual representation"); we should not forget the other items.
>
> As a further suggestion:
> - What do/did other communities do (C, C++, Pascal, ...)?
> - Do they even have this "slick, gorgeous, unmistakably recognizable logo"?
>
> At least when I started programming (a long while ago) I was not aware
> of any "C logo". I also agree with Mue that we don't need anything
> violent: Smalltalk (at least to me) is simple, beautiful, elegant,
> friendly and peaceful (as in "peace of mind")
>
> Mike

Mike Bielser escribió:
> Well, a lot has been said (and done; see the graphical suggestions)
> about a Smalltalk logo. So let me wrap up (and please correct me if
> something is missing):
>
> - We need a textual representation
> - We need two graphical representations: b/w and color
> - The graphical representation must be scalable
> - It needs a "cuteness" effect
> - It should be easy to use for merchandising (don't forget all those
> meetings, research conferences,... where we want to give away mugs,
> keychains, toys,... or a "Smalltalk Store" for these goodies)
>
> As James Robertson already said: "What does the penguin <snip>"
>
> So I suggest we choose something similar in spirit, e.g. a squirrel:
>
> - Cute "small" animal
> - Starts with the letter S
> I believe right now way to much emphasis is put on the first item
> ("textual representation"); we should not forget the other items.

A mascot is one thing, and a isologo is other thing.

As the isologo I really like the simple square brackets representation,
it's simple, it complies with many rules for a simple isologo:
representable in 1 color, vector based, easy to reproduce.

And for the mascot, we can rebirth Polly Morphic, the Smalltalk
Chronicles mascot:

<http://web.archive.org/web/20021205025258/www.smalltalkchronicles.net/edition3-2/Pages/editorial.htm>

I want it to be polychromatic. It could be a chamaleon, but SuSE took it
first .

I like this snip:

"Some of you may be curious about the parrot. Parrots aren't normally
considered a symbol of Smalltalk, but this one is. His name is Polly
Morphic, the Smalltalk parrot (thanks to Vassili Bykov for the name) and
he's our new mascot. He small, he talks, he wears the right colors, he
flies, what more could you ask?"

Also, we can refine the smalltalk globe, giving it a modern-stylish look.

As Bruce Badger stated before, is hard to get consensus on this,
everybody can say what they think, but given these conditions, a group
of designated people of the community/industry (the STIC in this case)
must take the decision.

Regards,

--
Esteban.

Esteban A. Maringolo wrote:


> A mascot is one thing, and a isologo is other thing.
>
> As the isologo I really like the simple square brackets representation,
> it's simple, it complies with many rules for a simple isologo:
> representable in 1 color, vector based, easy to reproduce.
>
> And for the mascot, we can rebirth Polly Morphic, the Smalltalk
> Chronicles mascot:

<snip>
I didn't know about this parrot and I like it. But, it does not have to
be "either or", does it? You can have a vector-based, one color parrot,
can't you?

Mike

What ever happened to the balloon? Is it copyrighted? It's probably
the graphic already best associated with Smalltalk. Let's not waste all
that good marketing.

Esteban A. Maringolo wrote:
> Mike Bielser escribió:
>
>> Well, a lot has been said (and done; see the graphical suggestions)
>> about a Smalltalk logo. So let me wrap up (and please correct me if
>> something is missing):
>>
>> - We need a textual representation
>> - We need two graphical representations: b/w and color
>> - The graphical representation must be scalable
>> - It needs a "cuteness" effect
>> - It should be easy to use for merchandising (don't forget all those
>> meetings, research conferences,... where we want to give away mugs,
>> keychains, toys,... or a "Smalltalk Store" for these goodies)
>>
>> As James Robertson already said: "What does the penguin <snip>"
>>
>> So I suggest we choose something similar in spirit, e.g. a squirrel:
>>
>> - Cute "small" animal
>> - Starts with the letter S
>> I believe right now way to much emphasis is put on the first item
>> ("textual representation"); we should not forget the other items.
>>
>
> A mascot is one thing, and a isologo is other thing.
>
> As the isologo I really like the simple square brackets representation,
> it's simple, it complies with many rules for a simple isologo:
> representable in 1 color, vector based, easy to reproduce.
>
> And for the mascot, we can rebirth Polly Morphic, the Smalltalk
> Chronicles mascot:
>
> <http://web.archive.org/web/20021205025258/www.smalltalkchronicles.net/edition3-2/Pages/editorial.htm>
>
> I want it to be polychromatic. It could be a chamaleon, but SuSE took it
> first .
>
> I like this snip:
>
> "Some of you may be curious about the parrot. Parrots aren't normally
> considered a symbol of Smalltalk, but this one is. His name is Polly
> Morphic, the Smalltalk parrot (thanks to Vassili Bykov for the name) and
> he's our new mascot. He small, he talks, he wears the right colors, he
> flies, what more could you ask?"
>
> Also, we can refine the smalltalk globe, giving it a modern-stylish look.
>
> As Bruce Badger stated before, is hard to get consensus on this,
> everybody can say what they think, but given these conditions, a group
> of designated people of the community/industry (the STIC in this case)
> must take the decision.
>
> Regards,
>
> --
> Esteban.
>

Wow I love the ideas that are flying around.

Rebirth of the parrot is a fantastic idea. With an emphsis on cute and
color full. Detail should be restrained.

First let me restate my position, that I don't care about a text
version of the logo what so ever. In text we can simply put
"Smalltalk" or "Powered by Smalltalk" or some other catch phrase.

With that said I think the Parrot can work in text. Now keep in mind I
am horrible at this, but I am sure somebody out there can do a good job
making a parrot head out of text.
__
_/ o)
_ /\)
)/

Of course I do think that we could have both a Mascot and Logo. But I
do think the Mascot is really your primary marketing tool.

Enjoy,

Chris Lopeman

> Rebirth of the parrot is a fantastic idea. With an emphsis on cute
> and color full. Detail should be restrained.

I like the Parrot too - although I didn't mind the original balloon either.
I am not fond of the the [|] - it makes me try and figure out what smiley
it is. I thought the suggestion of:

[
] powered

was pretty good though (although to be hones all ascii graphics are pretty
crummy, and just typing [Powered by Smalltalk] works fine for me. I would
rather see a nice graphical logo anyway.

Tim

Thomas Gagne wrote:

> What ever happened to the balloon? Is it copyrighted? It's probably
> the graphic already best associated with Smalltalk. Let's not waste all
> that good marketing.

That's what I've been wondering also (although I do like Esteban's colourful
and simple rendering of the [] idea).

How many people who read this group have /not/ marvelled at the spendthrift
folly of some large organisation which has decided to spend <millions> on
rebranding itself ? How many of you can think of /any/ successful rebranding
exercises ?

And as for the squirrel, etc, I'll just say that it's bad enough trying to
persuade people of the virtues of a language with a /seriously/ uncool name,
without having a tacky "cute" mascot too.

-- chris

Thomas Gagne wrote:
> What ever happened to the balloon? Is it copyrighted? It's probably
> the graphic already best associated with Smalltalk. Let's not waste all
> that good marketing.

The balloon's qualities should not be taken for granted at all. It's
30 years old, and I heard somebody saying that it gives no good
impression -- on the contrary, it gives the idea of something that is
"just air". ;-)

The Smalltalk beach ball at
http://www.smalltalk.org/versions/DolphinSmalltalk.html is much better
for example. I don't know how much related it is/was to Dolphin? A
week ago is about the first time I saw it, and I found the link above
(which relates it to Dolphin) just with a Google Images search for
"smalltalk ball".

There are two kinds of logos: cute ones (like the penguin), and simple
ones (like the [|] that was proposed). The first ones can be very
successful, but are much more risky. They can be successful, they can
be neutral, they can kill a product. The first possibility is very
unlikely. I believe the penguin was very nice and appreciated, but
overall neutral -- Red Hat anyway uses the hat, SuSE uses the
chameleon, etc.; if Linux is not yet a consumer OS an audience that may
have been "tickled" by the penguin has not been reached yet. And for
sure the Java blue/red cup wants to be cute, but it's unlikely it
brought even more momentum to Java.

The third possibility is more likely than what most people would think.
Smalltalk has tried to kill itself enough in the past, that we do not
want to risk getting it even worse. We may be cool programmers, cool
class library designers, but please let's keep it simple and don't get
muddled in swords and other tries to do what is *not* our job.

Paolo