[Wikipedia-l] Do we need a new logo contest?

Sat Jun 14 18:14:42 UTC 2003

Erik Moeller wrote:

>I'd like to know if I'm alone in being quite tired of the current  
>Wikipedia logo (as used on en: and most of the non-English pedias). There  
>are several things I do not like about it:
>
I haven't thought much about the Logo, so I don't have a lot of strong 
feelings about either keeping or changing it.  I can only promise an 
open mind on the subject.  Erik does make some strong arguments for his 
proposal.

Colour does make it look sharper, but there still needs to be enough 
contrast for the benefit of those who receive or prefer to receive 
monochrome downloads.

>Wikipedia has thousands of highly creative users, many hundreds more than  
>when Cunctator originally created the logo. I think a logo contest on  
>Meta, officially promoted on all the main pages, could produce very  
>satisfying results: a visually pleasing logo which is international and  
>can therefore be used by all our editions.
>
>Just a few ideas:
>- an alphabet letter which also looks like a construction site
>
That begs the question:  From which alphabet?  It would be centred too 
much on one language or group of languages.

>- a green tree with some interesting fruit (letters, pages or something  
>like that)
>
This may have scalability problems, given the relative sizes of trees 
and fruits.

>- several book volumes standing next to each other, with an inkwell  
>sitting on the top
>
"Wikipedia is not paper."  Too retro.  I think there is a need to 
incorporate the future formats of knowledge in this kind of logo. 
 Perhaps someone else has an idea about how to include the concept of 
electronic media into a logo.

>- a flower or planet within a pair of double square brackets.
>
>But maybe it's just me and everyone else loves the textball. I'd like to  
>hear some feedback on this. 
>
Even if this doesn't lead anywhere it does merit some consideration

>Just as a quick demo I have hacked together  
>the last idea from the ones above and put it at
>
>http://www.scireview.de/wiki/Main_Page.html
>
>in the context of the current Main Page. Note that this logo is just a  
>quick hack and I do not suggest that it should actually be used, but I   
>think that the colorful picture looks better than what we have now. Still  
>I admit that I have *no* artistic skills whatsoever. That's why I'd really  
>like to see what could come out of a large logo contest.
>
It IS attractive, especially with its use of bright yellow with its 
suggestion of new life.

Ec