In article <3915ee78$1@news.povray.org>, "Bill DeWitt" 
<the### [at] earthlinknet> wrote:

>> Words change, meanings of words change. Maybe it is time we redifine
>> the word logo to mean what we want it to. Let's bring the word logo
>> into a 21st century context which includes computer generated 3D
>> symbolisms and complex abstractions. Let's be rebels !
> 
>     I agree that words change, but the function we want is still here. We
> want something by which POV-Ray can be recognized.

Why?

Why do we want a logo by which PoV-Ray can be recognised?

Nike sells shoes to the masses, Macdonalds sells hamburgers to the 
masses, Ford sells cars to the masses.  All of these profit-driven 
_companies_ have logos in order to foster brand recognition, and thereby 
differentiate their product in a saturated consumer marketplace.

We're not a company, we're not out to make a profit, we don't have a 
product to sell, and what we do doesn't appeal to the mass market - why 
do we need an official 'logo' at all?


Feed 'PoV-Ray', 'povray' or 'pov ray' into Google, and guess which page 
comes up first _every_ time?  You got it:  www.povray.org.  Yahoo, 
likewise, always returns the official PoV-Ray site at the top of the 
list.

What does this tell us?

The name itself is unique and identifiable.  The _N_A_M_E_.  Not the 
logo, or the icon, or anything else, the NAME.


Unless PoV-Ray suddenly develops a user-friendly, object-oriented 
front-end, it will never be in a position to compete in a consumer 
marketplace.

If it never needs to compete in a consumer marketplace, it doesn't need 
to advertise.

If it doesn't need to advertise, it doesn't need a logo.


Pop quiz:  What's NASA's logo?  What's Amazon.com's logo?  What's IBM's 
logo?

I think I'd be pretty safe in saying that _everyone_ here knows what 
those organisations are, but I would be very surprised if anyone could 
describe the logos of all three.  Why is this the case?  It's quite 
simply that NASA is 'NASA', IBM is 'IBM', and Amazon.com is 
'Amazon.com'.  Their names are unique, thus they never really needed a 
logo, and they never pushed it to 'consumers'.

The point:

If people can easily remember your name, you don't need a logo.


I think it would be much more productive for us to discuss ways of 
making the name/software/community of 'PoV-Ray' even more memorable, 
than it would be debating the merits of one pointless logo over another.

My suggestion:  Lower the capitals and drop the hyphenation.  I think 
'povray' is all we need.

Six letters, all different, all lower-case, with no hyphens or spaces to 
trip people up.  Easy to pronounce, easy to remember.  Unique.

What more can you ask for?

Henry.

PS:  Follow-ups set to povray.general, for obvious reasons.

Post a reply to this message