[Wikipedia-l] Wikimedia, MediaWiki logos uploaded

Fri Oct 17 16:50:10 UTC 2003

Jimmy Wales wrote:

>Erik wrote:
>
>>>I have used the second place design by User:Neolux 
>>>as the more important Wikimedia logo. I think it looks 
>>>very nice on the Wikimedia Foundation page, please 
>>>do take a look:
>>>
>I like it, too.
>
>On this point, I'll do whatever I'm told to do, because I'm not in any
>mood to argue about the logo with anyone.  :-) However, I do have a
>question.
>
>Is it really sensible to have different logos for the Wikimedia
>Foundation and Wikipedia itself?  
>
>So, I hope the answer is "Yes, of course, the Wikimedia Foundation is
>an umbrella for many differently-branded products, and so just as
>AOL-TimeWarner has a logo for AOL and a logo for Time Magazine, we can
>and should have different logos, too.  The Microsoft logo is not the
>same as the XP logo.  And so on."
>
>But, I wonder.  We're not a huge media organization, yet.  And the
>beneficial branding impact of a logo depends on people actually seeing
>it a lot.  
>
>If millions of people visit Wikipedia (and they do, and they will)
>then if I send a letter on Wikimedia Foundation letterhead to the Ford
>Foundation, say, then if that letterhead has the Wikipedia logo on it,
>there's a good chance that someone there will instantly have happy
>feelings towards us, because they'll instantly know who we are and
>what we do.
>
>But if the logo is different, and on a website that we don't really
>expect a lot of people to visit (as compared to Wikipedia proper),
>then it'll just be an abstract thing.  They'll think "Gee, why is the
>UN earth peace council sending us a letter"?  (ha ha)
>
>So, what am I supposed to do when I print letterhead?  Should we
>really do this?  Or should we use the puzzle-ball logo for everything?
>
I agree with Jimbo on this.  Having completely different and unrelated 
logos on different projects makes no marketting sense at all.  Adopting 
the 2nd and 3rd place logos from the voting to represent different 
projects is contrary to the purpose of having a logo in the first place.

If there is any place where the puzzle ball most belongs it's WikiMedia. 
 Although not the original or biggest project, it has become the root 
project through which everything becomes related.  The puzzle ball is 
more important to WikiMedia than to WikiPedia.  By using the puzzle ball 
in WikiMedia we can establish a theme that has linking thematic threads 
that run through all the other projects in the same way that the word 
"wiki" has been made to run through them all.  That may be accomplished 
by using variants of the logo, by using my previous puzzle piece idea in 
each logo, by using a scaled down mini-ball as part of each logo, or by 
anything else that preserves the thread.

My response to the question about what to use on the letterhead:  Use 
the puzzle ball on WikiMedia letterhead.

Ec