[Grok-dev] Grok CD

Sebastian Ware sebastian at urbantalk.se
Fri Jul 6 08:34:28 EDT 2007


Hi!

I am not in any position to decide anything here, but I thought I  
would drop my two pennies early... :)

6 jul 2007 kl. 12.28 skrev Jan Ulrich Hasecke:

> Hi all!
>
> I do not know, if this is the right place to discuss this question,  
> so please point me to a better place.

It's all done here (and probably over a beer at the sprints, but I  
have no experience of that part). :)

>
> I am responsible for Public Relations in the board of the DZUG e.V.  
> and living next door to real cavemen in the Neanderthal I am  
> involved in organizing two Grok-events: a workshop during the  
> FrOSCon in St. Augustin near Bonn on 25. and 26.08.2007 and the  
> Neanderthal-Sprint in Cologne.
>
> We might produce some advertising material for these events as a  
> grok flyer, so we need to decide about layout, artwork etc.
>
> I think that Grok gains a lot of momentum and gets an increasing  
> community, so that its perhaps time to think about a Corporate  
> Design for Grok.

We had a two week orgy about this leading up to the proposed new site  
design. It is to be implemented, but since the creative process took  
a bit longer than planned... :) implementation is still in the pipeline.

>
> The Caveman-analogy is a great source of inspiration as we all see  
> in the proposed layout for the grok homepage. But reading the  
> thread in this list about the new look I saw no conclusion.

It was decided to implement the final design:
http://www.urbantalk.se/DEVELOPER/grok_3

>
> So my question is: are there any guidelines for us so that we can  
> produce material according to a general CD?

Nope. No guidelines. I have worked a lot with advertising and CID.  
Writing guidelines at this point is probably overkill. Better to copy  
(as in carbon...) what exists with attention to detail. :)

The Grok logo on the website is "GROK" and the font Skia, with a  
shallow reflection. When are you printing the flyer?

>
> If not, I would like to throw in some remarks:
>
> It would be incredible helpful to have a grok logo, something as  
> iconic as the logo of plone.

In the site design there is a logo that will work well. Creating a  
symbol/icon would be great, but given that there is a name, a mascot  
and a design theme I think an additional symbol/icon will complicate  
the message -- when should I use what... :)

>
> The idea of a caveman as mascot is great, but I think that the  
> figure needs a more reduced design a more iconic design, like Tux  
> or Beastie. Hope you understand what I mean.

We have had a huge debate about this. I explained the problems you  
are addressing here, but a proposed simpler character was voted down.

There was eventually consensus on that the caveman at least needs to  
be simplified. Hard work has been done on this by Armin  
(developer at acsr.de). It is a great improvement.

>
> The idea with the cave paintings in the new look of the grok  
> homepage is great, but as some posters already said, the colors are  
> very subtle. A very sophisticated layout. But this is not what I  
> associate with a caveman. I think more color would fit better and  
> perhaps it is possible to use the color space the cavemen used,  
> red, brown, black, earthy organic colors. Something like ME GROK  
> BLOT DESIGN ;-)

Contrary to what some posters felt, people won't hear us better if we  
scream louder... ;)

That said, during final implementation the contrasts will be  
increased further. After (extensive!!! :) ) research, I have found  
the most probable cause of our different perception of this is the  
amount of ambient light. You will anyway have to adjust this for print.

>
> I think the grok project has more cornerstones of a good design  
> than many other Open Source projects. We have a whole world of  
> analogies, which are very visual and outstanding and we know that  
> our mascot shall be a caveman.
>
> Perhaps we can make a design contest with these parameters?

We have put quite a lot of effort into the final design of the site.  
I think the consensus is to move ahead with what we have done so far.  
And put that energy into the framework and documentation. :)

Mvh Sebastian

>
> Cheers!
> juh
>
> -- 
> DZUG e.V. (Deutschsprachige Zope User Group)
> http://www.zope.de
>
>
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