Topic on Project talk:Proposal for changing logo of MediaWiki, 2020

Rather than jump right into voting on logos, consider starting the logo redesign process by writing a w:Creative brief. Consider asking for advice from the Wikimedia Design Team and well known like (w:Susan Kare, w:Jeffrey Zeldman, w:Simon Oxley). A lot of designers will see this as a significant opportunity since there are few opportunities to design a logo for a well known software project that will also appear on every single page of Wikipedia in the "powered by MediaWiki" badge. A design brief might include the following topics:

• Background — what is the background of the project? Why is it being done?
• Target audience — what do they already think about this subject? Is there anything that should be avoided?
• Profile of the typical user or consumer
• Key insight - what has been learned about the market's attitude to the company, brand or product
• Single message — what is the one thing to tell the audience? What is the single thing they should remember about the offering? How will they believe what we say?
• Desired customer behavior? (e.g., trial, purchase, recommend)
• Tone of voice (e.g. serious, humorous)
• Mandatories (mandatory elements, like the sunflower)
• Timeline
• Budget
• Approvals (who needs to approve)

I agree that soliciting logo ideas is a great idea. I wouldn't bother with a detailed creative brief, though, because getting people to agree on this kind of thing ("key insight", etc.) is probably even harder than getting people to agree on a logo.

I agree that it feels premature to start directly with a vote on specific outcomes. That said, if the vote was status quo vs. almost anything else, I'd vote in favour of changing away from the logo, so…

@Jdforrester, DVrandecic (WMF), ZMcCune (WMF), Quiddity (WMF):

Is it me only, or the new logo ("pink flower", no longer a sunflower) looks very much like the logo for BP (except it is green, not pink). In 2001, in response to negative press on British Petroleum's poor safety standards, the company adopted a green sunburst logo and rebranded itself as BP plc ("Beyond Petroleum").

Note that the BP green sunburst logo even predates the yellow sunflower logo used for MediaWiki (Mediawiki was created in 2002, one year after BP adopted its logo): we cannot argue that our use of the *generic* sunflower since years grants us an exclusive right, it was acceptable *only* with the distinctive "MediaWiki" wordmark added, making it really distinctive.

See BP in English Wikipedia (showing the logo w:en:File:BP Helios logo.svg hosted only in Wikipedia under "fair use", not suitable for Commons where it was deleted multiple times).

Note that the chosen File:Mediawiki logo proposal (gradient translucent, capitalised).svg logo uses translucent colors (not a problem), but also gradients, which can become a problem:

• Printing it will be difficult; the former logo for Mediawiki was already difficult to print.
• When registering it for protection, we'll have difficulty to protect it with a black&white only design (and distinctively enough from the design for BP logo if it was registered as well in black&white only); the former logo could not be protected and was not protected.

In monochrome version (or for colorblind people), the confusion between BP and Mediawiki will be evident without the added wordmark!

This means that the new logo only works with hi-color devices where it is sufficiently distinctive but will stioll not be a strong mark without associating it with the wordmark "MediaWiki" (this was already the case, but the horizontal metrics of the former logo allowed placing the wordmark easily below the logo to fit a square.

Finally the mere image of a flower (without the wordmark) does not qualify it for registration and a protection: there are **lot** of uses of flowers/suns/mandalas internationally, including on national or religious flags (e.g. in Taiwan or India). So we've not solved anything: what is protected is the wordmark "MediaWiki" (independantly of the presence of absence of the logo above it).

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We could have designed something that was still a sunflower, but not needing high-colors, preserving the identity of sunflowers (notably the central area with the golden-ratio spirals, absent from the BP logo), but more symbolically represented rather than being a mere photo. We could have then kept the yellow/orange colors without requiring hi-colors, and with a black&white shape that was still distinctive abnd not requiring the presence of the wormark (still impossible with the new logo for its "favicon" at 16x16 logical pixels, rendered at 24x24 or 32x32 resolution on HiDPI devices).

Unfortunately, the contest for the 2020 Mediawiki logo occured in August only, and it was a too short time to get many people contribute to it (and many were in holiday) so the short vote (2 weeks in September, still many people were taking their holiday only at that time, and it was not anounced to anough people on enough Wikimedia sites or other channels) was biased by the limitation of choice and even if it was "adopted", the WMF legal department has still not been able to formally announce its adoption.

Designing a logo should be a long process with a long period of propositions and discussions: voting immediately after one month of proposition (and with a procedure that was not formalized before the final vote) is not a good idea (this has already caused a problem with Wikivoyage that was required to change it logo in 2013 (after an legal action initiated by the WTO).

For this reason, the period of submission should be at least 3 months (since its announcement to as many places as possible). We should have the time to prepare at least 6 very different designs, discuss all technical and legal problems, fixing them, discussing of alternatives for specific uses (e.g. monochrome, low resolution, printing, search for similarities).