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I’ve really been hesitating to post this as the last thing I want to do is step on anyone’s toes, but there’s a small thing that’s been niggling me…

The visual design of this new site is fantastic and Max and everyone else who worked on it ought to be congratulated.

It’s just that I have the unfortunate condition known as a ‘kerning obsessive’ and the way the ‘p’ sits between the ‘m’ and ‘h’ in the new logo has been jumping into my eyeballs for the last few days now.

Seriously, this absurd condition of mine really is unfortunate.

I took the liberty of doing a spot of kerning on the logo using exactly the same font/size/colour which I’ve added here below. Just to help it sit together and flow a little better.

I realize that this is probably on the bottom of the to-do list for the awesome new site. But I’d be interested to hear anyone’s thoughts on this…

alt text

Thanks for the heads-up. This’ll be my fault. Over the course of the site design, the logo’s colour and size had been tweaked numerous times. The logo had been done on photoshop, redone in Gimp, then illustrator and I’m sure at some point my last change-set had undone the good work of the original logo. Something I’ll look into addressing.

Took me a while to see the difference, but it does look nicer. Just going to second my suggestion for Symphony-branded merch; I’d buy a mug and a sticker at least :D

Cheers Alan. If you’d like I’d be more than happy to punch out some other versions of this kerned logo in the same formats used by the logo zip package over on the presskit page.

But I don’t want to go unduely sticking my nose into the team’s design process though :) Just an offer seeing that I’ve got the time at the moment.

I prefer the logo without kerning. I think it’s fine the way it is.

Okay, first of all I’d like to double Neither’s hesitation about addressing this topic as I have felt the same. It’s not “my business”, but then, Symphony is all about community input so I might as well at least offer an opinion. The way I see it, the y and m are simply screaming to be joined as a ligature. The kerned version feels more like a “logo type”, but I can understand rainerborene, too, as it is much “tighter” and “heavier” than the original logo and therefore carries a different connotation. Maybe another version with “wider” kerning could be the way to go?

Again, doubling Neither - just an offer of a different view :)

I don’t have a very strong opinion on the logo, one way or the other (though Johanna’s suggestion of a wider kerning sounds promising). I do want to say this however:

Symphony’s greatest asset is its community, and while I’m glad you all are sensitive to and respectful of the team’s own processes, please don’t feel like you need to hesitate to offer constructive feedback and assistance when you can. There are no swollen egos here ;)

I’d prefer a kerned version with y/m ligature. This was one of the first things I thought when I saw the logo for the first time.

Original logo from creatives at Airlock, apparently.

Symphony logo

Well, thanks to Craig’s enabling comment, here goes:

This may be directly the opposite of the desired goal of the identity redesign, but I miss some type of pure logo, icon, or dare I say mascot? Drupal has its drop, Joomla’s got it’s interlocking figures, even Alfresco has a radial flower dealie. I understand the need to work towards a professional, commercially viable identity, but I as a consumer of OSS products like Symphony, I have an expectation of a visual icon. We’re fortunate to not have a 2-syllable vowel-ridden name, but it comes at the cost of not being a memorable hook itself (personally I’m constantly explaining that it’s SymPHony, not Symfony).

In my mind, pure logotypes are much more effective for organizations than they are with products, which may be my issue here. Maybe it isn’t in the immediate future, but isn’t the Symphony organization going to potentially need to visually distinguish itself from the Symphony product?

Original logo from creatives at Airlock, apparently.

I like it.

This may be directly the opposite of the desired goal of the identity redesign, but I miss some type of pure logo, icon, or dare I say mascot?

Symphony once had a powerhouse …

Original logo from creatives at Airlock, apparently.

For what it’s worth, I like this one the best.

I wasn’t full involved in the creative process, but I do know that the creative folks did produce some iterations involving logotypes which included icon-based imagery; some obvious, some more abstract. I suppose none of it was deemed appropriate and this is the chosen direction.

I do like the tighter kerning of the original Airlock logo. @ashooner, I think you may have a point. The magenta dot provides a nice colour accent, but unfortunately I first associated it in my mind with a feminine hygiene product that used a similar “period” in their branding (kotex). They have since modified their branding and removed the dot. But it might be good to come up with something a little more distinctive.

I really liked the old icon and was sad to see it go.

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Having experienced both sides of this situation, I’d say the original design from the designer would be the way to go. Most designers agonize over every detail of a logo and I’d trust their judgement.

In regards to being like other CMSs and having an icon: I would err on the side of being distinctive. Symphony is nothing like other CMS products and having a pure logotype goes a long way in distinguishing it from others.

I like the Airlock version.

Original logo from creatives at Airlock, apparently.

If this darker version is what it’s meant to look like (in comparison to the much lighter current logo on the page), that’s that :)

I think we need a tagline! (I couldn’t resist after the Kotex remark.)

Tag line 1

Tag line 2

Tag line 3

@MrBlank: Absolutely hilarious.

@Johanna: The Airlock version of the logo was created using the base colors from one of our first mockups. As Allen and I went about actually designing the site, we subsequently changed the color scheme, which is when the logo kerning got messed up.

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