A few more thoughts:

• I think we might want to consider a different font entirely. I'm not super fond of how the "d" and "e" characters in Comfortaa look in "fedora" — and it doesn't solve the "a → o" problem.

• I think a pretty obvious move is to drop the "speech bubble", because it's responsible for about half of our problems. But yet... I love the symbolism, and it does feel like it's part of our design heritage at this point. Maybe even if removed from the logo proper, we can design some treatments which use that shape as an optional stylistic element?

This is some of my thinking in a timeline based layout. Just thoughts, not dictates.

I'd like to keep any design discussion at a really high-level right now and not focus on tweaks or personal opinions.

@duffy Okay, fair. I edited my previous comment to be a little more high level. Of your timeline, I'm most drawn to 7, with the dropped bubble.

@mattdm ah not directed at you but thank you :-) More, I'd like to see high level discussion and exploratory examples than "I dont like it" "I dont like $whatever" or "i like $whatever" without rationale as to why and without suggestions (sketches and examples are the best brain food. Just trying to set general ground rules as we've seen things sometimes spiral downwards without doing so!

@mattdm oh right now 7 is in my top running too but (I know you know this but to be clear to everyone else) the initial ideas are meant to be brain food not choices). To keep the speech bubble in, it's still technically an element as it's the shapw of the hole in the infinity.

The mockups above are limited to our pre-existing shapes. One open avenue for exploration is re drawing the infinity and the f - for example, the infinity as a line rather than a shape (eg much narrower than it is now. crossing a different angle, or the opening getting widened, or what not.)

FWIW, I also think #7 is a good candidate.

I actually prefer #9 the most, but on second thought, it reminded me of the Collabora logo. Collabora is an online LibreOffice document editing suite, so it's still in a similar category of "open source".

In the spirit of brainstorming, here's some ideas with using the initial infinity-f as the first letter in the word. At least as I'm doing it here, it really doesn't work — it's too easy to read the "8" as various other letters — s, t, p — and it's very hard to get the size balance and spacing to look right. But, you know, ideas. :)

@duffy My last one there with the tall letters does look a little Arby's. :astonished:

Number 3 looks somewhat familiar... 🤔

@duffy its worth exploring changing the orientation like you did in your last one. It changes the emphasis from the "f" to the "infinity".

A simple infinity logo is quite generic and common. I think we're better with something that at least balances that with another element (and I do like the infinity-f — it's clever!).

On the other hand, moving away from the f removes the temptation to combine the logo f with the word fedora (see my failed experiments along those lines). I assume that avoiding this (or looking like "ffedora") is why the current full logo with wordmark puts the logo after and shifted up.

This is some of my thinking in a timeline based layout. Just thoughts, not dictates.

"f" from 5-8 screamed "Flash media"

Same thing on @mattdm illustration 1-2.

However, dropping the wrapping bubble makes sense because we still have the bubble within the empty space of the symbol as illustrated on this image.

Even better, we can remove that empty space preserving the bubble shape. The infinity symbol is still present by simply reversing the mirrored "f".

@mattdm I actually suspect the logomark is superscripted on the right side of the logo not because of resistence to the repeated f but because of the shape of the bubble, it's hard to balance the mark on the left, and having the roundedness of the upper right of the logo in the upper right, balances the roundedness of the 'f' that starts the logotype off.

It's not actually super common to have a mark also be a letter that then runs right into other letters of a full name without repeating that letter in the normal type. It's actually far more common for the letter to be repeated. E.g., this is from the first page of results searching 'logo' on Dribbble:

https://dribbble.com/mairin/buckets/842980-letter-marks

So I'm not really concerned about any temptation combining the logo f - the f just needs to be sufficiently abstracted so that's a very non obvious thing to do.

Here's another idea based on some of the comments so far. It lacks a certain appeal, but using perspective, allows the infinity to take up a more 'square' space without the awkward diagonal required for the F, and also allows for an 'f' and an infinity in one single mark that is single-colorable without outlining.

With that design, couldn't we have some kind of outline to look like the voice bubble? I would imagine that the outline (rather than a filled in bubble) would not cause the same problems and still provide the distinctive feel that the current logo has today.

@ngompa what's the rationale? bringing back the bubble as a symbol (it's already there pretty boldly in the negative space on the top) or having the mark encapsulated in some form of shape, or something else?

Just another idea, rather than using perspective, varying the width of the infinity halves to even out the general shape of the mark.

@ngompa what's the rationale? bringing back the bubble as a symbol (it's already there pretty boldly in the negative space on the top) or having the mark encapsulated in some form of shape, or something else?

I just mean having the logo encapsulated in a shape that resembles the bubble. It also helps with making it look more "icon-like" by giving it a defined shape.

I think I prefer the perspective shift more than the width variations, as it looks "bolder".

I just mean having the logo encapsulated in a shape that resembles the bubble. It also helps with making it look more "icon-like" by giving it a defined shape.

I think this ends up being a problem in practice because:

• that shape devolves at small sizes, and
• when used in a set of other things which also have an enclosing shape (circles or squares or whatever), you end up with a double outline (and the center element may need to shrink more than it would were it stand alone).

I remember seeing it first time a few years ago and thinking what a quirky little logo. With time I started to recognize that it's fedora, I always thought that it was 8 slanted forward and that if you write f8 it becomes a short inside joke that it's fate that brings you to fedora :blush: after all other distros!
Now about the bubble, I didn't even know until reading this thread that it supposed to be a speech bubble, always thought of it as a blue blob (in a way that Drupal uses a drop as their symbol for the logo).
I would go for something like this (almost the same as luya said but with just upright bubble

I wouldn't say that I like letters in logotypes much but it could be difficult to make it recognizable otherwise.

Now that I thought about it a bit, the above suggestion is still almost as complex as original design.

I like the bolder approach if it doesn't have complicated breaking points in its' shape.
Also too much perspective can be bad for small sizes as it becomes not recognizable.

I uploaded svg here: https://fedorapeople.org/~ojn/img/fedora-new.svg

For the font, maybe we could use Fira Sans, https://mozilla.github.io/Fira/

For all users :

1. “Fedora” and the Fedora logo are trademarks of Red Hat, Inc. In order to protect and grow the Fedora brand, we have a distinguishable logo that can be used to mark genuine Fedora resources and approved third-party content. There are guidelines for the logo's appearance and usage, outlined here.

Read this: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Logo
Even this is set now with the word "draft", you can use it: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Logo/UsageGuidelines

@mythcat Yeah, once we have something, we will work with legal to go through the process of updating that.

I experimented with how that looks when put into the circle for icon type situations:

https://fedorapeople.org/~ojn/img/fedora-new2.svg

@ojn I think an isse with the particular perspective treatment you're using there is that the left side of the mark looks like a d, so it kind of looks like "df" - I wonder if we need to maintain the full crossover rather than just the cross on the right side to make sure it clearly reads as an 'f' alone?

Let's make sure the "blue shape in perspective" look doesn't look too much like the Windows 10 logo.

If nothing else, is it possible to have the perspective be reversed? Instead of "left side distant, right side closer", I mean.

If we have the Fedora word-mark on the right, it might look like it's overseeing it...

@sgallagh here's the perspective in both directions with a full cross of the 'f' (without the full cross it looks like a 'd' both ways)

Just some brain food - how many ways can you draw an f the fedora way...

I actually really like that non-perspective single-color swooshy f you have in the voice bubble without any tilt. With tilt I like the lower one best.

One of the first two I think is a better approach if we went with the encapsulating bubble, but I do think it makes a lot of sense to not have the bubbles because of alignment issues, as well as other issues (eg how do you make a hex sticker with a mark like that.) Maybe we can't avoid it though. If the guidelines could be permissive in the bubble treatment it might be a way forward.

I think the first two here are better because they have the more contemporary take on the 'f' (the top one's logotype mimics the f in the logomark).

I do like how this still looks fedora and doesn't appear to be a huge change.

some more tweaks to the font pending.

@sgallagh here's the perspective in both directions with a full cross of the 'f' (without the full cross it looks like a 'd' both ways)

I like the first one the most, I think it looks great in blue color without the bubble as well. It's still recognizable - breaking points are at the same places and it gives it some symmetry that isn't there otherwise.
I would also vote that we change the bubble to be optional, it is still great and recognizable and reinforces the overall shape (to many other logos have the round background as it is). But it not always works everywhere so one shouldn't complicate it in such cases.
I suggest that we look for a font that can be used in logomark text with the f that matches the shape in the symbol and has a similar symmetry. We could tweak some letters a tiny bit if necessary, since it should still be converted into graphics format.
Using this diagonal infinyloop symbol next to the logomark text could be tricky so the font would make it or break it.

On font tweaks: I feel like the r is realllly all up in the a's business. Is it just me?

On font tweaks: I feel like the r is realllly all up in the a's business. Is it just me?

r next to regularly shaped letter seems like a common problem, tried some free fonts just now and the spacing were all over the place there, mainly because r is such weird shape - few times it can seem to big and others too small...

I like Federant font:
https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Federant
small f isn't that great looking but the font itself is prominent while still being clean

I don't have svg files, used duffys png in gimp

@mattdm yes the r and a are a bit saucy there. the kerning on those isnt final, i didnt get w chance to upload before leaving the office tonight. will upload tomm.

More brainstorming on this, played around with Fedorant * and Bad Script fonts. Giving a nod to Debian with this toy story ref. Heh, now it looks almost like some sports car logomark which makes sense being the fastest distro there is... :smile:

• • Federant with small tweaks

https://fedorapeople.org/~ojn/img/fedora-beyond-infinity.svg

I actually really like that. I’ve been using the tag line “Where do you want to go tomorrow” in my head for Fedora for years...

It actually might be a good idea to have the Council discuss a catchy tag line that could be worked into the logo (a version with and without it would have to be made).

More brainstorming on this, played around with Fedorant * and Bad Script fonts. Giving a nod to Debian with this toy story ref. Heh, now it looks almost like some sports car logomark which makes sense being the fastest distro there is... 😄

The Federant font feels like a jarring juxtaposition here, since to me it speaks more "classical" than contemporary or futuristic.

That said, I want to keep the subtitle slogan! :100:

I think a treatment which can work with a slogan is a good idea, but I don't want to bake one into it. What sounds clever this year might not five years from now, and I'd like this one to last us another fifteen.

I agree with @ngompa about the feel of Federant — it's pretty, but it looks like old-fashioned hand lettering. I also like the continuity of the tweaked Comfortaa (even though I'm not really in love with Comfortaa as a general-use typeface).

The Federant font feels like a jarring juxtaposition here, since to me it speaks more "classical" than contemporary or futuristic.
That said, I want to keep the subtitle slogan! 💯

I think I agree with Neal here; I'd love to see some designs with a futuristic-style font. Maybe something similar to the Exan-3 or Ultra fonts shown on https://superdevresources.com/techno-sci-fi-fonts/ ?

@mattdm On the topic of a slogan, I suspect that should be a separate Council ticket, yes?

I think I agree with Neal here; I'd love to see some designs with a futuristic-style font. Maybe something similar to the Exan-3 or Ultra fonts shown on https://superdevresources.com/techno-sci-fi-fonts/ ?

These can look really dated / get old fast, too. That's kind of a risk with any specialty face. If we go for one of those, we should choose one of the more understated ones.

@mattdm On the topic of a slogan, I suspect that should be a separate Council ticket, yes?

Marketing team, I think.

Here's the updated mockup from last night.

I am not in favor of using a font that's a noticeable departure from the font we are using today (Bryant2). The main reason a modified version of Comfortaa is being used here is so we are using an Open Source font. The main goal behind this project I think is to solve the identified issues with the logo but still stay as close as possible to what the logo is today. So we're not doing a complete redesign here, just a revamp. I think swapping the typeface out for something very different than what we use now is not a good idea. And I don't think it worth doing unless there's a gain (e.g., OFL)

I like this very much. For some reason I have a viscerally negative reaction to the combinations of blue in the second one. Maybe time to play with colors a bit?

@sanja, @dustymabe, @mclasen, @bgilbert — I'd really like the colors we chose to sync with (either be the same as, or at least feel nicely in the family with) the Silverblue and CoreOS logos.

(Tagged those people to pull in some Silverblue and CoreOS folks, not because they're the only people involved, I hope obviously.)

Also, while we're looking at blues....

More brainstorming on this, played around with Fedorant * and Bad Script fonts. Giving a nod to Debian with this toy story ref. Heh, now it looks almost like some sports car logomark which makes sense being the fastest distro there is... 😄

The Federant font feels like a jarring juxtaposition here, since to me it speaks more "classical" than contemporary or futuristic.
That said, I want to keep the subtitle slogan! 💯

It's true, it's a old style font so it this might not fit with the future envisioning ambitions of Fedora.

LGTM - I'll defer to @sanja@mclasen, @bgilbert

I'm currently not able to give it more thought as I'm not much available until mid next week.

Square size fit is important. +1 for square size logo.

Bubble is really unfortunate because it looks like an IM logo, don't think that's great, it'll lead to explanations on booth duty again. -1 for any bubbles with IM associations.

I like the symbol inside, it's f, infinity, and an arrow upwards. I think the varying width for the infinity symbol ones are the best to fit the square and not include the bubble.

@sanja I actually like the bubble even with IM associations, if we make that logo more about the community than the "products". I've done a lot of Fedora booth duty and have never had to explain anything along those lines, for what it's worth. But anyway we should make it optional for flexibility.

Any opinions on color? What if we make the CoreOS blue our base color?

If we're ok with the bubble, I'm ok with the logo - yes, making the CoreOS color the base works. Nice and bright. Not opposed to any of the Fedora-connected blues mentioned above.

If we use the first one of the last two proposed bubbles, the text should be in the same color as well, though. The second one looks better because it uses the same bubble background as the text.

I agree with matt about the blue-on-blue issue, and with sanja on the text-vs-bubble color issue. Maybe try the second, but swap out the bright blue for silver ?

unless someone gets to it first ill do a few palette experiments next then! i like the idea of coreos blue and silverblue blue. i like the idea of silver too. i dont think we should necessarily change the secondary brand colors, so the primary colors should hang well with those.

Quick try with thinner, rounded inFinity with Fira Sans

https://fedorapeople.org/~ojn/img/Fedora-Fira-Sans.svg

One more, some experimenting with shapes

Fira Sans
https://fedorapeople.org/~ojn/img/fedora-shape.svg

inFinity

just the diagonal infinity

https://fedorapeople.org/~ojn/img/Fedora-image3.svg
https://fedorapeople.org/~ojn/img/Fedora-image8.svg

I have kind of the opposite objection to the previous typeface with Fira Sans — it's too generic. Also, as a practical matter, it was actually designed for Firefox OS, and so already has a kind of Linux distro affinity.

I don't mind more experimenting, but I lean towards Mo's Comfortaa-based treatment for the continuity with the old logo. Even though I'm not a big fan of Comfortaa as a body or headline face, I think it works for us here.

Hey everyone! Someone point me to this ticket, so I'm here to provide some thoughts. Lets hope they help:

• Going trough all the concept, if what we are looking is to simplify, then we would have to stick into a single color (if having a second or gradients, this color should be removable and not affecting the design itself); so designs containing 2 main colors but not having a B/W version, should be off the table.

• We are not moving (from what I see) from the imagotype standar, which leave us with a recognizable font that we have been using for years (Comforta), and finally making it part of the branding (which is completely logical), however, our isotype, has to be recognizable on its own. The bubble is the less important users see, they see the in-F-inity, which should migrate into the main logo (again, recognizable without the bubble)

• From all the proposals I mostly like 2, the #9 (lay out in-F-inity) from mo and the 2nd with drop perspective from mo as well. As icons, those are the ones that make the most visual sense to me, talking about branding.

I'ma bit swamp by work, so I might not be able to provide any new ideas, but feel free to ping me for more technical comments on the further designs to come. Either way, this kind of designs should go into at least, 2 technical meetings after pre-selection just to have a couple of people non related to the design of this logo take a look to it.

my 2cnts

Just another idea, rather than using perspective, varying the width of the infinity halves to even out the general shape of the mark.
<img alt="fedora-logo-idea-4.png" src="/design/issue/raw/files/3530dd3ac7f67ea30c8a3de5df092f90b1da96ec8a09c80e71b48dd64ecd401b-fedora-logo-idea-4.png" />

I love several of the logos here, especially 2 and 9.

The idea to switch to a free/open facetype is awesome, and a lot of people will be happy about it.

@mattdm On the topic of a slogan, I suspect that should be a separate Council ticket, yes?

Marketing team, I think.

Mindshare indeed. Marketing is now executioners, basically we bring ideas to promote, but we don't work with messaging. We can do a mindstorming, so it's not a bad idea, but Mindshare will be the better place to work with this slogan.

The first one here is awesome too, I think this is my +1

@tatica Hi! Super-awesome to hear from you! It's been a while!

@duffy Have you had any chance to play with palette experiments? What are our next steps?

@mattdm here it is with the updated palette possibilities:

I think the next step would be to meet with Tom?

The multi-color ones here I don't have an instant dislike for like I did the one above for whatever, reason, but I still do like the single color ones the best. They seem stronger, I guess? Definitely more clear from across the room, too.

I agree on the lighter blue, too. That's the CoreOS blue, right?

Ooh, you said you were working on the kerning with the "ra". Do you have that?

Here it is with the kerning adjusted as well as some more treatment screwing around / food for thought.

+1 kerning adjustment. Maybe the e and d could be just a tiny bit little tighter? Maybe I'm just driving myself crazy squinting at letter forms. :)

What do you think about allowing either the lighter or darker blues depending on context? I'm afraid the lighter one won't be versatile enough. What would be your suggestion for a treatment on, say, a blue t-shirt? That's pretty likely to be a thing.

FWIW my daughter says that she likes the shaded ones in the bottom right.

@mattdm yeh i think being flexible w the colors is good. maybe we pick the lighter blue as default and the darker as a valid alternative.

I'd be tempted to scooch the text down so that the crossbars of the f's are aligned.

Could we have some black and white previews of how this looks (one on black background and another on white background)? One thing that's been a concern in the KDE side is figuring out how to deal with the Fedora branding for Plasma Desktop. My hope is that this newer design might work better.

I like the dark one more, it looks more.... Sofisticated, maybe?

Do we really need to change things so radically? I think we could fulfill the requirements while staying much closer to the current design:

(I would let both the middle version and the bottom 2-color version coexist.)

Note that the only changes I did to the rendering of the stock Comfortaa font from Fedora 27 are the ones listed in the image:

• I let the 'd' have the bottom serif by simply copying it from the 'a'.
• I slightly improved the kerning around the 'o' by removing 1 pixel of whitespace on both sides of it. This not only leads to a more uniform kerning, but also makes the text in font size 96 have the exact same pixel width as the original logotype from the stock /usr/share/pixmaps/fedora-logo.png.

Of course, if you want to modify the font source itself, those changes should be easily doable there, too.

I operated on bitmap images for this mockup except for the bubble part in the 2-color version, for which I edited fedora-logo-sprite.svg.

But please don't ask me to do production-grade artwork, I'm a developer, not an artist. ;-)

Realistically, a less radical change, such as the one proposed by @kkofler, may be better for the project as a whole. The current logo has no real major issues, it looks "modern" enough, and is certainly well known.

It may in fact be harmful to drop a logo with such strong brand recognition, rather than sticking with the current logo, or making subtle changes as necessary, and I obviouly agree that a two-color logo is necessary.

I think I agree that the current logo has too many elements that make it difficult to scale it down and put it in more opportune branding setups.

One of the reasons we don't have our Plasma Desktop loading screen branded with the Fedora logo is because the logo looks horrible inverted (white on black).

The proposals by @duffy and @mciahdenn have sufficiently addressed my concerns about a future revision of the Fedora logo. We still have all the important design elements of our current logo, and now it's all built with open source components.

At this point, I want to see some grayscale / black+white variants to see how it looks in those scenarios.

Gray-scale as asked.

@kkofler That addresses the closed-source font, and possibly the single color / dark background situation, but appears to ignore the other issues. If you think those issues aren't valid or important, okay, but I think it's important to state which things aren't addressed.

@johnmh I'm actually super happy with the latest proposal. I think it looks fresh and new yet still obviously in the same lineage as the existing logo. That's a pretty impressive trick, really. On recognition: yes, we definitely have that with the Fedora name, but outside of the project, way less so, and that's where we really need it.

I would like to see one or two other close-to-fully-realized ideas, but I hope each of them can also address all of the issues we need improved.

@luya Judging by the grayscale variants, the darker ones of each column look like they'd work in an inverted black and white form (that is, the background is black, so the dominant color in the logo is white instead).

I'm not sure the lighter ones would look very good in that context.

@kkofler this doesn't solve some of the main driving issues we were looking to solve:

• the fine lines required for the mark in your 1 color version aren't printable at small sizes (e.g. on pens, which we do), and they also don't read very well at any size but especially at smaller sizes. it also looks awkward.
• awkard superscript ending logomark makes it difficult to center logo and just looks weird

Just changing the font isn't enough of an advantage to be worth doing IMHO

@johnmh "The current logo has no real major issues"

As a person who lives and breathes this logo basically on a daily basis for the past 12 years I can say that is not so, and Matthew's list of issues to address affect me and my team on a regular basis.

Here's an update:

• I aligned the top of the logotype f midline to the top of the logomark f midline; I did this rather than center vertically because it results in the bottom of the logotype nicely aligning with the bottom of the negative space of the bottom infinity loop in the mark.

• I kerned the e and d a little more tightly

• I added another potential mark for exploration / development from some of the mockups above in this ticket. Open to other ideas too!

• Added a one-color black & white preview for each mark on the bottom.

The No. 1 looks awesome!

@duffy, the first version looks fantastic!

I feel like 1) works better in color, but 2) works better in black/white. At least when shrunk down, the 2) logomark is much more recognizable.

The most recent proposals remind me of the Macromedia ColdFusion logo (even the colour). It's unlikely to be confused, but to me option 1 above reads a cf monogram, and option 2 looks like a cfP monogram.

Unless we really need to, I think we should avoid changing the essential shape of the icon's f — even if the wordmark uses a half-crossbar, the icon doesn't have to match it exactly, and I'd be sad to lose the symmetrical f we have now.

Could we consider a version of option 1 above but with a full crossbar in the icon's f?

In fact… where did the half-crossbarred f come from? The Comfortaa font in my Silverblue 29 has a full crossbar, as does the version on Font Squirrel.

Have we considered straight vertical cuts at the end(s) of the f's crossbar in the icon? They may make the shape resolve better at small sizes.

OK, combining a few ideas… how about something along these lines?:

Your mark still looks like "cfP". I don't think it is possible to get rid of that with a 2-color f/infinity mark not using outlines. (I shall also note that relatively fine lines are also needed in all those approaches to split the infinity and make the 'f' visible.)

As for the symmetry, I agree with you that it is unfortunate to lose the symmetry of the infinity.

@gregknicholson

I like the overall shape of the symmetrical f infinity with sharp cut outs
and I think the new font changes could work with it just as well.
I would appreciate if anyone could post the new logomark text it in svg so that it can be previewed locally in inkscape.
I think the logo itself looks better with thinner lines - it's easier to distinguish on smaller sizes. @kkofler I don't agree that it looks like cfP, it's just the shape so there's no letters there.
From all the versions I saw it is the most straight forward and simple one while still being recognizable.

https://fedorapeople.org/~ojn/img/fedora-logo4.svg

Your mark still looks like "cfP". I don't think it is possible to get rid of that with a 2-color f/infinity mark not using outlines. (I shall also note that relatively fine lines are also needed in all those approaches to split the infinity and make the 'f' visible.)

Yeah, I agree. There doesn't seem to be a way to draw the f-infinity that is undeniably correct: every version has parameters that could be tweaked slightly, and it would be debatable whether the result is better or worse.

(My favourite example of a logo that is undeniably correct is Mitsubishi's — there are no parameters to tweak there, not even line thickness.)

In search of geometric purity:

There is an “f” there if you look hard enough at the edges, but it's only very very subtly implied.

(I'm assuming these ideas and explorations are welcome, but if we've already decided on a route I'll stop adding noise.)

@gregknicholson I like the simplicity but this seems so generic that it's almost not recognizable as fedora, it looks more like 2p atomic orbital.

Here's one iteration based on one of the previous shapes:

https://ojn.fedorapeople.org/img/fedora333.svg

For what it's worth, I really like the top gradient version by @duffy above. I know that creates nightmares for certain uses of the logo (I'm thinking embroidery), but for the color logo that will be used digitally in many locations it's substantially more vibrant. I love flat design, but there's a real sparkle to this version of the mark that I think is appealing (in an I can imagine a strong redesign around it sort of way).

My favorite design in this thread so far is number 2 from this comment above. Most people seem to prefer #1, but that leaves the issue of the speech bubble shape, which was one (of the many) reasons for exploring a redesign. (And, personally, I've found it challenging to use the shape in the small number of things I've worked on, including as a badge shape for incoming designers).

New Take

Below is the take I came up with last night (not yet completely, fully formed).

Logo History

Of the three components of the Infinity + Freedom + Voice logo, the "freedom" visual (an "f") was the weakest.

Freedom

Conceptually, the freedom is better exemplified by the "+" because you can always do more. The license, the ethos, the spirit say: do something new.

Editions of Fedora

@mattdm noted as an FYI/caution at the beginning of this issue that Fedora is likely to have an ever-increasing number of flavors and versions changing rapidly. This is the nature of the freedom that Fedora and open source provide, and a modular-type logo / mark might best exemplify and prepare for this reality.

Voice

The true voice of the community emerges from the freedom in the form of these editions:

• Without the ability to + there's no CoreOS
• Without the ability to + there's no Silverblue
• Without the ability to + there's no IoT edition

Graphically, then, this extends from the "+" as a speech bubble. Fedora, then, can literally "speak" its formal editions:

• Amplifying (+) it's voice
• Exemplifying the freedom
• and ensuring infinity

Infinity

The infinity of Fedora exists in a practical sense in this amplification of voice allowed by the freedom. It's not static (like the symbol, treading the same ground and eating it's own tail), but always moving forward; up; into the future. Always better.

Concept (in brief)

So the main logo/mark is a "+" that is speaking. (If you look long enough it's kind of "f"-ish.)

The various editions, then, can be part of what Fedora is speaking.

Caveats

I'm not certain on the placement of some of the elements in the "editions" iterations. But conceptually I think it's strong. Having the edition's text to the upper-right of the name is weird, but it mirrors the concept nicely (e.g. Fedora speaks IoT).

One more thought

The "+" as logo does seem boring. To the extent it looks "f"-ish I pushed a little bit more with the below. Same general idea -- slightly more abstract. Less of a "+" and more of an "f" (in a good way I hope).

Again, open to any thoughts. Thanks in advance for feedback/criticism.

Wow, thanks Kyle! This is more amazing work, and I appreciate the explanation of your thought process.

I suggest the team work on a few more refinements to the top ideas, and then present those to the community at large for wider feedback. Then, let's select a final idea in consultation with the Fedora Council.

before here be anything is presented to the community. I have some points.

1. it was complained about comfortaa font, its still there
2. it was complained about the bubble shape and the troubles it costs always, its still there

so what good for, is this change now? Its just to make a change and nothing else

The logo design by @kylerconway is interesting.

A few things stand out to me:

• Would this kind of design allow all of our flavors to offer variant logo? That is, a logo structure similar to how the various Ubuntu flavors work, where the core property of the flavor is imbued within the logo, giving it distinct visibility (Kubuntu, Ubuntu MATE, etc.). That would be a cool approach for us to give each edition/spin/variant its own "voice".

• I'm not sure infinity is really well-represented here, though I like the concept of "ever growing and evolving" with the + mark.

• How would this logo look at small sizes? My conceptualization of this would indicate that Fedora's logo becomes really indistinct at small sizes, because it looks like plain shape. The speech "bubble plus" variant might be more distinct, though.

I'd also like to see the variants concept applied to the "bubble plus" variant of the logo too.

I would love to see @kylerconway expand on that second idea, for now to me that looks like The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, or a person with very weird spinal structure, but the basic idea of f in that style is very appealing.

I don't like however embedding logos inside of other logo's chat bubble (with the first design, variant a), because it's not distinguishable enough, spacing looks kinda wrong, there are issues, which either which way you go, at lower resolutions, that's gonna be close to invisible. You would need to expand the size of the chat bubble, but that's changing the meaning of design as far as I can understand it.

Look at openSUSE, the only way we were able to distinguish sub-releases (Leap, Tumbleweed, Kubic) from each other, and not have people confused about it, was to create dual branding, where we have to call out "openSUSE" as a project before every sub-release, the logos are way too generic (and I sure hope to change them at some point :/). Creating a generic logo for the project can be the same because you cannot label project + sub-release by a sole logo because combination brings up the same meaning as the single logo you would put there in the first place (as in, project's logo means nothing anymore when combined with sub-project logo).

So my belief, in this case, is that you should focus on either making a simpler sub-release logos, which is completely besides the point of this exercise or focus on just making the project's logo, where you have easy option to add a sub-release logo, without obscuring one with the other, so you have a way to associate everything correctly (like variant b, I could have just mentioned that I prefer that one over the a, wouldn't have to write so much, well, too late now).

That was actually the first two designs to really get me to write here, and whether that's good or bad is up to you :P

@gnokii I'm not sure which complaints about Comfortaa you are referring to. For me, my concern is with the "a" being hard to distinguish from an "o" at small sizes or a distance, and Mo has addressed that by modifying that letterform. Were there other issues? I think in general Comfortaa is much preferred to Bryant, since it's open source.

Comfortaa is, of course, quite similar to Bryant as in the current logo. To me, that has the advantage of familiarity and comfort; on the other hand, a very different font could open up new possibilities. So I'm personally not attached to either option as long as the result is good.

As for the bubble shape, @duffy can explain better than me I think; as I understand it, the problems aren't with the shape itself, but with the shape alone as an icon, or as part of the Fedora word + logo mark where it's shoved up in the top right corner. Mo, is that right? Is there more?

I very much like the idea of using the bubble as the top part of the f and the examples of project logos incorporated into the bubble. Also, the f now looking like a human with arms outstretched gives it a nice touch.

@gnokii I'm not sure which complaints about Comfortaa you are referring to. For me, my concern is with the "a" being hard to distinguish from an "o" at small sizes or a distance, and Mo has addressed that by modifying that letterform. Were there other issues? I think in general Comfortaa is much preferred to Bryant, since it's open source.
Comfortaa is, of course, quite similar to Bryant as in the current logo. To me, that has the advantage of familiarity and comfort; on the other hand, a very different font could open up new possibilities. So I'm personally not attached to either option as long as the result is good.
As for the bubble shape, @duffy can explain better than me I think; as I understand it, the problems aren't with the shape itself, but with the shape alone as an icon, or as part of the Fedora word + logo mark where it's shoved up in the top right corner. Mo, is that right? Is there more?

please read the opening https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/design-team@lists.fedoraproject.org/thread/PXV7KEG5LWYTLZEZKS4XWGSHPL2KW2TL/

Unfortunately, @kylerconway's design loses one main design element: the infinity. It is just nowhere to be seen anymore. The 'f' also mostly disappears in favor of the '+'.

The rationale for introducing the '+' does not sound very convincing to me. I also don't understand this focus on CoreOS, Silverblue and IoT, considering that the most used deliverables are actually Workstation and the Spins (in their regular, non-atomic form).

The rationale for introducing the '+' does not sound very convincing to me. I also don't understand this focus on CoreOS, Silverblue and IoT, considering that the most used deliverables are actually Workstation and the Spins (in their regular, non-atomic form).

Consider that an example — the same concepts could apply to KDE Plasma.

I appreciate all the comments. Here's more food for thought that I've been playing with. These include the "infinity" within the construct of the "+".

@gnokii so I complained about Bryant2 bc it's proprietary, not Comfortaa. @mattdm was uncomfortable with some of the letter shapes in Comfortaa which we tweaked to address.

Re: the bubble shape, one of the three mockups still uses it, which isn't ideal. But that was an attempt to minimize the amount of change being imposed. Overall the biggest issue for me is lack of one-color solution.

@kylerconway a couple of things on your idea we should be careful of - the first round of iterations, I think the concept is great, we might want to play around a bit with the visuals. One issue with a solid "+" is that it can have a medical meaning, eg, the CVS minute clinic logo: https://seniordirectory.com/images/made/uploads/listing/MinuteClinic_560_305_s_c1_c_c.jpg (note that is really quite a clever logo, bc you have the first aid "+" combined with the hands of a clock... which I never noticed before now lol)

The iterations down further where you're playing more with the composition of the + i think is the right direction, but right away I was thinking of the TuneIn logo:
https://img.talkandroid.com/uploads/2015/12/tunein_logo_color.png

There is a "+" in the center of the Fedora infinity, which you could carve out similarly to how minute clinic carves the clock hands out of the "+" - but then you get stuck with the lopsided shape of the Fedora infinity symbol which has made every attempt to drop the bubble thus far fairy challenging. The + is a nice symbol bc it's balanced.

Also, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinity_plus_one ?

@duffy The latest iteration you did (this, I think) could also be bubble-optional, yeah?

@mattdm i don't think it works without the bubble. it's too diagonal / lopsided. :-/

@duffy -- Agreed. That's the worry with the "+". I'm attaching some other experiments below. These iterations try to either better emphasize the "f" to differentiate or bring greater balance to the infinity symbol (by emphasizing it).

One of the core questions will be how much of a deviation we're willing to allow from the logo at present. Here are some further iterations on this theme.

I like "j".

"m" gets a little close to looking like... panes of glass. :)

@mattdm -- You'll probably never be able to unsee it once you see it, but I think "j" looks like the letters "dp" (!!!) -- that's actually why I rotated the pill-like shape in "k" and changed to a circle in "m" to better emphasize the "+" within the infinity symbol.

Depending on the timeline/objectives here we could explore other approaches/ideas for the mark. Of the non-bubble varieties I'm still partial to the @duffy design #two here despite the noted imbalance without the heavy bubble shape to stabilize it in space.

Ooh, I agree with @mattdm, I think you have something worth pursuing with j. I don't think the dp is super obvious, and it's not bothering me too bad. Can you pass me an SVG for it?

Just a more general, process-oriented comment... I think before we present these widely, we should kind of mockup a mini system for each. Because I think designers looking at these can see where they can go, but those of us with less experience with brand design might not be able to see it with specific examples.

So, just for instance, I like how @kylerconway showed possibilities for how a logo candidate might look with different Fedora editions... maybe we show how it would look with an edition, with a spin, with a team name, with an app (e.g. pagure, docs, bodhi), what the favicon would look like, etc. To show how it'd look across a breadth of treatments.

@duffy -- you should have the svg now.

I agree that mocking up whatever mark we move forward with in context will be important. Are there currently any design guides for the spins, editions, etc? In the CoreOS example I just modified the logo from a multi-color to a single color, but I have no idea whether that's an acceptable use.

Glad that you and @mattdm aren't worried by the "dp"―that's the problem with staring at pixels for too long!

I see musical notes. :)

What are our next steps here? I'd really love to have a final design this FY so we can make a large swag order.

I would be happy if we could settle on something simple, after all the diagonal infinity is the most recognized feature of the logo

https://fedorapeople.org/~ojn/img/fedora-cornerstones.svg

@mattdm the next step is to build a mini brand swatch kind of thing and see how the options work in that context. I haven't had time to work on this; I don't think end of Dec is a realistic timeline, unfortunately. Even if we knew right now which direction we wanted to go, we need to open this up for wider feedback and iteration and that will take more than 4 weeks of which more than a week is Christmas vacation. :-/

I think Marchish might be reasonable, but that was our old fiscal year system.

@duffy Sorry — I should have spelled that out. Yes, FY still starts in March, so late February would work, assuming we can include time to get approved designs from vendors.

@mattdm ah ok cool, i think the timeline will work then obvs. i thought the fy changed to cy when our benefits did.

While working on this, please be aware of https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/fedora-release/pull-request/49 which is going to define a standard location for a square logo for DEs and tools like Cockpit to display. As I mentioned over there, it would be excellent if we could have Edition-specific logos that would fit in there.

Wow ... lots of input.
Amazing thoughts

Although it seems a little late, it wouldn't hurt to add one more voice to the pool. Version "m" in @kylerconway iteration is beautifully different. Yet, it retains our valued symbols. I see the infinity and I see the bubble. (https://pagure.io/design/issue/620#comment-540527). Me thinks we should give it a chance.
I still struggle to appreciate the logic behind the shape of the bubble and why a bubble symbol matters. Is that a speech bubble -- as in "free speech"? If so, the current bubble symbol may be too abstract. It may rewarding to consider iterations with alternatives like:

The problem with version m is the similarity to the Windows logo pointed out by @mattdm.

If you are familiar with the existing Fedora logo, you can recognize it. But if you are not, you see a 4-paned window instead. In that case, the center part probably just looks like a normal window crossbar or a + to you, maybe you can get the hint at an f, but you don't see the infinity sign.

That logo may also get us in trouble with the trademark lawyers at Microsoft Corporation.

@kylerconway I had a play with your j, this is what I came up with, basically another layer. Makes it look cloudy. I really like the layers you created so i was focusing on playing with that.

@twohot For historical interest/context: The speech bubble comes from Fedora's original slogal of "Freedom - Infinity - Voice". It's more about community and participation and inclusion than about freedom of speech. See https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Logo/History and in particular this slide.

OK here's some style tiles with some of the candidates here.

Interesting enough upon second look, I like the first option more although others are quite very good.

OK here's some style tiles with some of the candidates here.

The second option is very close without the bubble and can look timeless. Third one feels crowded.

A quick note pointing out that option 1 (which, by the way, I also like) does not solve one of the stated problems―using the speech bubble in designs.

I like the idea of trying for a cloud of some sort, but specifically in comparison to the 1st two you've presented, the 3rd looks very crowded.

My favorite here is still the 2nd (middle). It's similar and different (and is bubble-shape-less), but we'll likely want to see it in different use-cases.

@ojn had an idea above that I sort of modified here (playing with line thickness). I don't know that this is better, but I figure it might be another element worth exploring even within some of the designs we're already working towards refining.

@duffy -- do you have an svg of some clouds you made before? (I can't remember what they were for, but they were lovely and simple). Also, are you using some template layout for the mock-ups?

Fixing numbers 3 & 4 white on blue.

@kylerconway:

A quick note pointing out that option 1 (which, by the way, I also like) does not solve one of the stated problems―using the speech bubble in designs.

How is that an issue? The "voice" speech bubble is the most recognizable element of the current Fedora logo and immediately associated with the Fedora brand. I don't understand why you want to throw it away.

The only issue with the bubble that was listed in the initial comment is its positioning relative to the text in the current (combined) logo (as a superscript), which makes centering difficult. But that is not an issue with the speech bubble symbol itself, just with the relative positioning of the small "icon" logo relative to the textual logomark in the combined logo. All the proposed designs except my conservative proposal address that (and it could easily be changed in mine too).

@kkofler it's possible I've misunderstood that point. I agree that it's recognizable. If the only issue is/was the superscript placement then you're correct that that's resolved or easily resolveable in all presented options.

I think the other trouble with the bubble is that it deforms to an unrecognizable blob at small sizes. We'd also talked somewhere up above about "bubble optional" designs — the bubble as an available style element but not mandatory.

Reporting back from the Council meeting here. Overall very positive. @duffy, do you think there is a reasonable timeline for feedback and refinement where we could have a final decision in early February?

Actually, let me put that another way. We'd like to have a final new logo by January 31. Is that possible?

Fixing numbers 3 & 4 white on blue.

I really like the nr2 variant, the variable lines make it look nice even on the smaller sizes and somewhat reminiscent to the handwritten f letter.
I think that the logo posted in the website tiles pics is too different from the current shape to my eyes and that might be fine but I would't recognize is as fedora if I saw it on the t-shirt for example.

@mattdm i dont think jan 31 would be realistic. we have the holidays coming up which will impact folks ability to participate. i would think mid to late feb is realistic. note that finalizing the logo means testing it across a bunch of situations and modifying for those situations and also coming up with some barebones at least to start guidelines for its usage.

@kylerconway i like the idea of playing with the width, and the new vatiants look nice, but off the bat they look a little retro / retro future to me. i wonder can you play w the contrast so its a little less of a diferential?

@duffy What about a design that we feel okay approving for limited use in specific approved swag?

@mattdm id really be concerned about community members feeling left out if we did that. what would be the full context for such swag? we could maybe make some kind of mosaic design of some of the candidates, a logo for the redesign project itself?

@mattdm oh one thing worth mentioning, i think we're all solid here on the updated logotype? so at the least end of jan would likely be ok for logotype only orders

I do not agree with the new Fedora logo.
The old work is a based to this logo.
From old colors of the Fedora logo to the guidance is a good range for brainstorming issue.
But I can see the @design_team is new and to many ideas will vanish the old work of many users from @design_team.
The new team has many to do:
duffy
Máirín Duffy
main admin

ryanlerch
Ryan Lerch
admin

mleonova
Maria Leonova
admin

gnokii
Sirko Kemter
admin

mciahdenn
Micah Denn
admin

@mythcat I'm not sure I understand your comment. Can you explain?

Offtopic

@mythcat after even @pfrields gave up a few years ago to tell you softly that you have to improve your communication and that we not understand you, you are moderated on the mailing list and before that been muted in IRC. Its not about the english and that you are not a native speaker, several of us have the same problem, including myself.
Its more that you never understand what is off topic and mix several topics into one and we have to sort out then, what you trying to tell us.

As the moderator I got the following to moderate a while ago:

1. Why can you add my account to https://pagure.io/design members?
   Is this a new political into design-team area?

only seeing this and the comment, I can guessing that you ask why you not have admin rights in pagure. To give you the answer, there are several team members, who dont have. You can comment, you can commit what more you want?

You are now nearly 5 years muted on IRC and on moderation on the mailing list. So what shall we do with you now, after starting make your confusing statements on pagure?

You cannot change it (logo with all guidelines) into the manner of one issue. The next design (issue) can follow that point.
And my point is regarded to https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Logo/UsageGuidelines into the area of https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Design.

NOTE: I do not want to receive admin rights, earnings, and badges to be just my opinion in the design community that does not interfere with all sorts of claims.
1. What "tell you softly" and " you are moderated"?! My Fedora account is older than yours @gnokii and even @duffy. I participated in the vote when I was elected @pfrields.
My time is limited. I give the help when I can do that. My communication has good enough to tell my opinion.
2. I have more good growth in eliminating all sorts of paragraphs by "new users" that have nothing to do with communication into my mail area (yes this can be confusing )
I do not have to repeat the same flame over and over by common speech about " you never understand what is off topic" when the links I give you are they properly approved or not?
They are properly approved.

@mythcat As I understand you feel strongly about the old logo as many others do, but simplifying it is for everyone's interest. Also at least for the text there seems to be some consensus that it became much cleaner without looking too different.
Usage guidelines could be updated, I don't think it's insurmountable task - choosing a new logo on the other hand is not as easy.

No drama in this ticket, please.

@kylerconway i like the idea of playing with the width, and the new vatiants look nice, but off the bat they look a little retro / retro future to me. i wonder can you play w the contrast so its a little less of a diferential?

What do you mean by "contrast" with respect to a single-color here? I just want to make sure I understand. Thanks!

so now something to the topic, I am still not convinced that its done in the right way. Branding is not a thing which should be rushed. That our FPL thinks that its just about some stickers worries me even more, we would have to give each Ambassador new shirts, we have to change nearly all websites that is not done from today to tomorrow.
I am also not convinced that thinking in colors when it comes to flavors, products or whatever will be the right thing, it will bring us with the next change into trouble again.
There are some issues which not get addressed, like the pictoral sign for "friends" well let it raise his arm furthermore.
We really should have talked this through first an then address all the issues and yes maybe that takes 6 months but we talking about the branding here which is not a short living thing

@ojn If the Legal:Trademark_guidelines let you do that over design team
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Legal:Trademark_guidelines

That our FPL thinks that its just about some stickers worries me even more, we would have to give each Ambassador new shirts, we have to change nearly all websites that is not done from today to tomorrow.

I'm not sure where or how I gave that impression, but I certainly do not think that this is "just about some stickers". In fact, it's about a lot more than stickers, shirts, or any other swag; and it's more than websites, too.

@kylerconway ah sorry for the vague comment! i meant the contrast between the thinnest and the thickest parts of the shapes. I think a high contrast there gives it the retro look while maybe dialing it back a little bit would give a more neutral look? (And i think id try to make the thinners thicker and go from there. i think tje thinnest should be thicker to be more fedora-y, we dont normally have a lot of thin lines in brand illustrations i think?)

@duffy What about a design that we feel okay approving for limited use in specific approved swag?

Is this quote of you enough? Of course its more then websites, stickers and shirts, thats what I say all the time. We really should not rush this, it just will harm us in long term. This really has to be done with all stakeholders. We really with the branding in a stage where a complete makeover makes sense, example the "remix" section never used instead we have now flavors, labs and spins. Last ones complain since years they feel a bit unwanted. So lets sit down first marking all issues then think how we want to sell Fedora to the public in the future and then we can design whats needed for it. Slogan came already up, there are many things who need thought-out. Not again just patch it a bit

@gnokii i dont think its all or nothing, i thikk we can roll put incremental change.

@gnokii i dont think its all or nothing, i thikk we can roll put incremental change.

I do not think thats a good thing, I think a complete overhaul and make it ready for the future makes it easier to get it accepted as it will be a talking point for many. The fact is the trend that we have more and more "products" will continue and if we think not about a good solution we always will patch

Thank you @mattdm
Why reason to change the fedora logo, is purely selfish for me to change the old logo from years?

@mythcat The reasoning for changing the logo is literally in the topic post. And for what it's worth, I agree with the reasoning.

@duffy With regards to the three logo options with the mockup websites, I think I'm more okay with the bubble-less version than I was before. I still prefer the bubble, but I would be okay with either option. I definitely dislike the third variant for the noise and the confusing representation of Fedora in the logo.

I have a feeling that the community as a whole would prefer the first variant over the second variant, because it is basically a simplification of the current one to make it workable for more formats and sizes.

But if we want to have a decision on this, we should probably propose to the community now. That would also give us an opportunity to try to get the branding shifted for Fedora 30.

And we do need things like the remix branding, because people do use those to reference Fedora when they make their own custom derivatives.

@ngompa I don't agree with the reason.
The https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Logo/UsageGuidelines don't restrict the usage of the logo and show us many options, also is very permissive.
The logo has been used for years and on successful themes and there have been no problems.

@gnokii but you dont just wave a wand and have a whole system.

@mythcat On the contrary, it's been a huge pain for Fedora KDE. To this day, we still can't fully brand our Plasma Desktop because the Fedora logo is horrible in grayscale.

@gnokii but you dont just wave a wand and have a whole system.

I know that, when we really have a bigger break between 30 and 31, that would us give time. And we could try to be ready with 31 with it, would give the change a good introduction and people have something more to talk about and if we do it right, then they also see Fedora prepares for the future

@gnokii Er, yes, an out of context quote is absolutely not enough to then claim that I "think it's just about about stickers".

To both you and @mythcat: this isn't done in a vacuum. But it isn't the design team's responsibility to, alone, come up with marketing strategy. Please have some basic faith that we're working on that, and that it doesn't need to all be solved in one place.

@mythcat I hear your statement that you feel that there have been no problems with the current logo. However, others of us in the project, including members of the design team and those of us working on that big picture strategy disagree. It's okay — we don't always have to agree on everything. But that can't keep us from exploring.

Can we please refocus this ticket back on the work at ahand?

I'd really like to restrict this ticket to discussion of the design and the design process. If you want to talk about whether or not we should redesign the logo, i think it would be better to bring that up with the council. Enough rationale has been provided in this ticket and this isnt a good place for more back and forth on that bc we have work to do here and its getting lost.

@gnokii i agree, but i think we could roll out artifacts on the way - i think one huge change all at once causes unnecessary conflict vs ! frog in boiling water :-)

@gnokii Er, yes, an out of context quote is absolutely not enough to then claim that I "think it's just about about stickers".

its not out of the context. Where is the problem to say, ok lets change the branding for the future needs and deadline is F31, why it must be rushed?

To both you and @mythcat: this isn't done in a vacuum. But it isn't the design team's responsibility to, alone, come up with marketing strategy.

you tell me nothing new, what you think I talk all the time of? Your way is right now, make a design and then figure out an marketing strategy and we have to patch then again the branding.

Please have some basic faith that we're working on that, and that it doesn't need to all be solved in one place.

thats in my perspective a bad joke, it has to be solved in teamwork with all stakeholders. Thats what I asking since the begin on and I dont have to have faith in something I have to "know" something to get my part of work then done.

@mythcat I hear your statement that you feel that there have been no problems with the current logo. However, others of us in the project, including members of the design team and those of us working on that big picture strategy disagree. It's okay — we don't always have to agree on everything. But that can't keep us from exploring.
Can we please refocus this ticket back on the work at ahand?

@gnokii:

example the "remix" section never used instead we have now flavors, labs and spins.

The "Remix" section is by definition designed to be used by third parties, not by Fedora itself.
The reason the Fedora Remix imagery is rarely if ever used (whereas the term "Fedora Remix" itself is frequently used and must remain in the trademark rules!) is that there is no complete fedora-logos replacement using Fedora Remix branding. The fedora-remix-logos package contains just some remix images (all the color variants, so more than any actual Fedora Remix would ever need) in a directory. It is not hooked to anything actually used by other packages nor does it supply some essential imagery (e.g., there is no icon logo with a Remix branding – to be honest, I also have no idea how that could look like, but what I do know is that it is needed if we want to actually have Fedora-Remix-branded remixes). So the remixes are stuck either using the fugly generic-logos "hot dog" brand or rolling their own.

@mythcat:

Thank you @mattdm
Why reason to change the fedora logo, is purely selfish for me to change the old logo from years?

I also don't understand why we need to redo the logo to begin with.

@ngompa:

@mythcat On the contrary, it's been a huge pain for Fedora KDE. To this day, we still can't fully brand our Plasma Desktop because the Fedora logo is horrible in grayscale.

Huh? Fedora KDE/Plasma uses the normal colored Fedora logo as the menu button. A monochromatic or grayscale variant is not really needed.

@mattdm:

@gnokii Er, yes, an out of context quote is absolutely not enough to then claim that I "think it's just about about stickers".

The quote is not out of context: @duffy really proposed to use the new logo only on e.g. stickers for now while leaving the rest with the old logo. That is exactly what @gnokii disagrees with. I completely agree with @gnokii that any logo change must be rolled out at once and not piecemeal, in order not to dilute the branding.

@duffy:

I'd really like to restrict this ticket to discussion of the design and the design process.

How do you propose to impose this? If you want to limit the discussion to the Design team members only: I think excluding the community from the discussion would be entirely the wrong message to send! If you want to let everybody comment and just restrict the topics allowed, then I think the problem is that not everybody here agrees on what exactly is "discussion of the design and the design process" and what is off topic.

If there is community disagreement on whether we should have a new logo at all, and the design process was started without ensuring consensus on that subject (an essential prerequisite), then discussing this is very much related to the "design process" and should not be silenced.

The design does not need to be — and should not be! — rushed.

However, there are significant budget decisions that need to be made sooner rather than later. The fiscal year end comes whether we like it or not. We currently have a significant budget surplus. I was just trying to figure out what the schedule possibilities are, because if we intend to do a refresh of all materials which contain the logo, that's going to be somewhat expensive — and it happens we have the money to do it right now. So, it'd be convenient if that aligns.

If it doesn't align, okay, so it is. We'll make sure we spend the money in good, constructive other ways and will use future budget for new logo items. That's all good — I just can't know what the possibilities are without asking.

The design does not need to be — and should not be! — rushed.
However, there are significant budget decisions that need to be made sooner rather than later. The fiscal year end comes whether we like it or not. We currently have a significant budget surplus. I was just trying to figure out what the schedule possibilities are, because if we intend to do a refresh of all materials which contain the logo, that's going to be somewhat expensive — and it happens we have the money to do it right now. So, it'd be convenient if that aligns.
If it doesn't align, okay, so it is. We'll make sure we spend the money in good, constructive other ways and will use future budget for new logo items. That's all good — I just can't know what the possibilities are without asking.

so take the money and put all stakeholders for several days in a room, you get an earlier result.

Please take the discussion to the council list. You are free to talk about it there.

This is not "censorship". It's using the design ticket for the design and the discussion forums for discussion. The appropriate thread is here, in the Council discussion list (which is open to anyone and your participation encouraged).

@duffy about the thickness and contrast: isn't that dependent on how it relates to other elements?

I made a quick svg conversion (w/ some rough edges) if anyone want's to play with @kylerconway nr2 suggestion from https://pagure.io/design/issue/620#comment-545182

https://fedorapeople.org/~ojn/img/fedora-v1.svg

@ojn no i do not think its a relational thing.

@duffy I tried to play with the thickness of it and it looked awful (mainly because of my lousy inkscape skills).

And now that I think about it, if one makes the lines the same widths the regular infinity symbol starts to look better without the cutout, that on smaller sizes at least- which are the most important ones to get right in the logo.

https://fedorapeople.org/~ojn/img/fedora-v0.1.svg

Here's crazy idea, keeping the f

https://fedorapeople.org/~ojn/img/fedora-v0.2.svg

@ngompa i think im leaning towards having a brand system that allows for the symbol in or out of the bubble, basically, the bubble would be an option. theres other brands that do this. i think it could work well.

@ngompa i think im leaning towards having a brand system that allows for the symbol in or out of the bubble, basically, the bubble would be an option. theres other brands that do this. i think it could work well.

I like that idea. Would we have different variations of the "Fedora Infinity" in this system, or the same one with the bubble being optional?

@ngompa what would the diff versions be?

@duffy I was thinking of the variations of "Fedora Infinity" present in variants 1 and 2 of the website mockups you showed here: https://pagure.io/design/issue/620#comment-545013

Could we have a vote for narrowing down to only two refreshed brand candidates and present them to the community with rationale and examples? We could explain what are the shortcoming of the current logo.

The logo has been used for years and on successful themes and there have
been no problems.

This is what strikes me as odd when I see things such as the claim that it's
somehow hard to center the logo, while tools such as Inkscape allow us to
easily center the logo, among other such issues.. Perhaps we're just looking
for a reason to make a change where there really is none. Logos really can
"grow old", however I don't believe the Fedora logo has reached that point,
and I'm sure many others don't either. I don't like to speak for others, so I
certainly won't make that claim, however. There are a number of people that
have the current Fedora logo as a tattoo.

--
John M. Harris, Jr. johnmh@splentity.com
Splentity
https://splentity.com/

On Monday, December 10, 2018 11:39:03 PM EST Luya Tshimbalanga wrote:

luya added a new comment to an issue you are following:
``
Could we have a vote for narrowing down to only two refreshed brand
candidates and present them to the community with rationale and examples?
We could explain what are the shortcoming of the current logo.

``

To reply, visit the link below or just reply to this email
https://pagure.io/design/issue/620

This sounds like a fantastic idea, but I believe that the community should
also be given the option of the new wordmark with the old infinity logo.

--
John M. Harris, Jr. johnmh@splentity.com
Splentity
https://splentity.com/

@johnmh there is a difference between mathematical center and visual center with the shape. if you try it yourself it'll become obvious. its not smtg inkscape can do for us.

fully aware of those that have tattoos, i designed some of them

@johnmh

There are a number of people that
have the current Fedora logo as a tattoo.

good for them

This sounds like a fantastic idea, but I believe that the community should
also be given the option of the new wordmark with the old infinity logo.

I like the current logo, but there is a certain challenges to make it look cohesive and recognizable even at the distance, there's no fault in trying to improve on how it get presented.

https://fedorapeople.org/~ojn/img/fedora-v3.svg

@johnmh there is a difference between mathematical center and visual center with the shape. if you try it yourself it'll become obvious. its not smtg inkscape can do for us.
fully aware of those that have tattoos, i designed some of them

Just experienced this myself with the latest shapes, centering inFinity and the bubble in inkscape didn't give me the centered representation - it was quite a bit off center there in regards to the cross sections of the f.

Note also that visual centering is only one of the problems we are trying to address that wouldn't be covered by just changing the wordmark. I don't see that as a viable solution. I do think that one or more of the options we bring to the community at large should have high continuity with the current logo — and we do have those options.
It's probably also useful to present in context with some more radical directions we have decided not to take.

I'm going to be blogging two options shortly. Here is what I put together for that. Let me know what you think so far. I'm working on the text now.

After reading the blog post, I'd pick candidate 2. I think I'd like it better if the loops were closer to a 1:1 ratio and if the gap were slightly larger.

@bcotton - why do you prefer it closer to 1:1? (it makes it less balanced) Is there an issue coming across you'd seek to address with that shift or is it just a gut feeling? Same with the gap - is the gap not clear enough so making it larger is a potential solution?

@duffy the 1:1 is definitely more of a gut feeling. Maybe because it's closer to the current logo so it's more familiar?

The gap doesn't look very F-like at small scale. I'd like to see it opened up a little bit so it's more clear that it's an F that looks like an infinity symbol as opposed to an infinity symbol that looks like an F, if that distinction makes sense. Something like double the width might be more appealing to me.

(And as with all of this, I have no particular expertise in design or printing, so I'm very open to being told there are good reasons for the current design. I wouldn't oppose candidate 2 as-is, it's more of a tweak)

While my preference is for option 1, I would not be unhappy with option 2. With the way option 2 is structured currently, you can even see an outline of the bubble in the negative space of the larger loop up top, so we still have some reference to it there.

This is such welcome news, I'm elated and eager to move away from the closed source font.

I prefer option #1 overall. But I envy option 2's more diverse encapulated options.

I'd vote #1 with more encapsulated options, or I'd settle for #2.

Both are amazing.

On Wednesday, January 9, 2019 5:41:53 PM EST notKlaatu wrote:

klaatu added a new comment to an issue you are following:
``
This is such welcome news, I'm elated and eager to move away from the closed
source font.

I prefer option #1 overall. But I envy option 2's more diverse encapulated
options.

I'd vote #1 with more encapsulated options, or I'd settle for #2.

Both are amazing.
``

To reply, visit the link below or just reply to this email
https://pagure.io/design/issue/620

When presenting these options to the Fedora community, it would be great if a
third option, the current logo or current logo with minor alterations
accompanied by a wordmark that does not use a closed source font, were
included.

--
John M. Harris, Jr. johnmh@splentity.com
Splentity
https://splentity.com/

Of the two candidates, I originally liked 1 because it was closest to what I know and love. I think I was lost in the iterations to where you are getting to. However, after seeing them in the context of other elements, I am really drawn to candidate 2. It feels cleaner to my eye. Not that I have an eye for that kind of stuff...

+1 for candidate 2.

Tim Bosse
maztaim@gmail.com

As your server does not respond to submitting my comment right now (and I thankfully saved it), I am going to reproduce the comment below now. (Sorry that the first part is about the blog post, but I don't want this get lost, so I include it here.)

My emotions when reading this article were like this:

• intro: Oh, really? surprised
• I see, bigger problems than I thought…
• At the iterative design stage: okay… ugh, no… 3d?!… argh… looks like Win10… no!… okay, quite nice…
• Seeing the final proposals I was relieved from that, because they are both quite nice, IMHO.

As for the proposals:

• _ #1: Ah alignment kicks in here again: (after reading the article, that had to catch my eye: https://hostux.pics/images/2019/01/10/image14441ba61d46d849.png (or is it manually mis-aligned?)
• actually, I feel that both icons are quite the same… at least the "encapsulated version" in #2 with the bubble shape compared to #1… or #1 "mark sans bubble" compared to #2.
• Considering that both icons look quite the same (and yes, I had to look closely before I noticed the difference in the versions listed in the bullet point above this), I think you maybe can try other ways there. As well… they look same.
• I also missed the f after thinking about it, but when seeing #1 initially when scrolling down (after seeing not-so-nice iterations… uhm…) I really thought "Yes, this is/looks like Fedora. I see Fedora in here.", so actually it seems to reassemble the "old" one very well… and maybe the f is not so important after all… maybe… but well, you see I already have nostalgia.
• _ #2: While this may be correctly aligned/centered vertically now, due to the size differences I feel it is not really centered in the horizontal meaning, i.e. in this part: https://hostux.pics/images/2019/01/10/image0cb606b675fc2f55.png
  That said, if this is intended to provoke a "it's special" feeling, because being out of the height of the letters looks special, then I do accept it. But it's strange at the first sight.
• Alignment again, as you kept it in the #1 version: IMHO, maybe that is actually not so bad and you may keep it. I mean, it may be bad for designing, but yet again it then a) looks special and not so "all icons are equal/rounded/fit into squares" and b) you can just create a really good (visual) design guide that makes it clear to designers how to best position the icon. Maybe even provide an SVG with the "visual center line" added, which you can remove after positioning the icon.
  Also, the bubble helps to correctly position your sticker of the icon on your laptop, i.e. to find out which site of the sticker is the bottom, so you do not accidentally stick it on with the wrong turn. (Srsly, it's already hard enough… #testedWithCurrentIcon) – I imagine this is way harder with #2 (i.e., "was the big bubble at the top or the lower one right now?!").
• _ #1: I do like the effect in your sample web site, where you fill the area of the logo with some image or so… (i.e. the one under "Headline example")
• _ #2: "However, it is a bit closer in design to the various icons we have for the Fedora editions (server, atomic, workstation)" – I do not agree here, as I actually find the strokes (line width) way to small to be comparable to the icons you list at the bottom left. E.g. silverblue is totally different and much bigger. Thus, IMHO, #1 would better fit to the other icons you listed.
  Also, as I actually see on the live getfedora.org, you do use the icons of workstation etc. differently there (in an "inverted" way), so it may even be more familiar to #1 in this way.
• _ #2: This may be very subjective, and likely is, but IMHO this version is a little too "generic", i.e. it could be a logo of any new startup or so, or be part of a design template. I know, hard words, but yeah…
• I guess what I actually most associate with Fedora is actually the bubble shape. Whatever is in there, does not matter so much… ;)

BTW, I've newer considered that the speech bubble actually stands for the voice. What you could do is try to find/add some new symbols for the things you lost in the new logo. (I mean the infinity already is a symbol for freedom somehow… at least that's what I've always taken it for, I had rather taken the "f" for a sign for "fedora" itself.)

Edit: The Markdown parsing of this platform here is awkward. That's why I had to add these "_"s.

Hi John,

When presenting these options to the Fedora community, it would be great if a
third option, the current logo or current logo with minor alterations
accompanied by a wordmark that does not use a closed source font, were
included.

From my perspective, that's exactly what we've done - these are minor alternations to the logo that also fix the issues with the logo. If we only replaced the logotext, we would only be addressing one of the issues - it wouldn't be worth the change at all. Changing the logo is going to be a big deal because we'll have to upgrade all the websites, collateral, etc. and it'll take a long time and a lot of work. And if it was for such a minor change and still had the same problems we'd have to deal with, I'm not sure there's a value in doing it. Does that make sense?

I definitely prefer option 1 over option 2, and +100 for having a single colour logo.

Having the bubble in the full logo + wordmark kinda makes the vertical spacing neater, as well as improving the negative space between the logo and wordmark. on option 2, without the bubble, the spacing and vertical alignment between the logo and wordmark seem a little off to me (had a play, and not sure it there is a good alignment without the bubble) to my eye.

On Wednesday, January 9, 2019 7:00:08 PM EST M=E1ir=EDn Duffy wrote:

From my perspective, that's exactly what we've done - these are minor
alternations to the logo that also fix the issues with the logo. If we on=
ly
replaced the logotext, we would only be addressing one of the issues - it
wouldn't be worth the change at all. Changing the logo is going to be a b=
ig
deal because we'll have to upgrade all the websites, collateral, etc. and
it'll take a long time and a lot of work. And if it was for such a minor
change and still had the same problems we'd have to deal with, I'm not su=
re
there's a value in doing it. Does that make sense?

I don't personally believe that changing the wordmark should be considered =
a=20
"minor change", if the change is to a properly licensed "free culture" font=
=2E I=20
believe I've presented my opinion of the other issues which were listed in =
the=20
primary post, and that is certainly why I suggest less radical changes than=
=20
the two proposed logos in your last mockup. Something like https://pagure.i=
o/
design/issue/620#comment-537765 wouldn't be bad. If you could send me a cop=
y=20
of your candidate 1, or please refer me to a location where I may find=20
candidate 1 as a vector image, I would be happy to demonstrate my idea.

=2D-=20
John M. Harris, Jr. johnmh@splentity.com
Splentity
https://splentity.com/

@johnmh I respect your opinion, but unfortunately changing the wordmark would leave a myriad of difficult issues unaddressed if that was all we did.

On Wednesday, January 9, 2019 7:51:54 PM EST M=E1ir=EDn Duffy wrote:

duffy added a new comment to an issue you are following:
@johnmh I respect your opinion, but unfortunately changing the wordmark would leave a myriad of difficult issues unaddressed if that was all we did.
=20
To reply, visit the link below or just reply to this email
https://pagure.io/design/issue/620

I am certainly not suggesting just changing the wordmark. Minor changes to =
the=20
existing logo would be great, to satisfy the requirements set forth without=
=20
creating an entirely new logo.

=2D-=20
John M. Harris, Jr. johnmh@splentity.com
Splentity
https://splentity.com/

@johnmh respectfully, https://pagure.io/design/issue/620#comment-537765 doesn't solve any of the issues beyond the font.

On Wednesday, January 9, 2019 7:55:22 PM EST M Duffy wrote:

@johnmh respectfully, https://pagure.io/design/issue/620#comment-537765
doesn't solve any of the issues beyond the font. ``

Right, I completely agree. I would suggest something like https://pagure.io/
design/issue/620#comment-537765 with minor changes to satisfy the requirements
in the first post in this thread. I would be happy to create a mockup.

--
John M. Harris, Jr. johnmh@splentity.com
Splentity
https://splentity.com/

@johnmh please feel free to do so.

I am going to reproduce here the comment I already posted on the blog:

Out of these two, I prefer Candidate #1 because it is closer to the current logo. I think brand recognition has its value.

In addition, Candidate #2 loses the speech bubble and thus an important part of our message (“speech” as in “talking to friends”, but also a reference to “free as in speech”).

(Now, if the current logo were on the poll, I would vote for that one instead! But I prefer Candidate #1 over Candidate #2.)

And for the record, this is @duffy's reply:

Hey Kevin, thanks for that. If there was a way to leave the logo alone and not have to deal with all of the issues I’ve outlined here, I’d much prefer that as well!

My feeling is that the existing logo contains too many elements (the f, the infinity symbol, and the speech bubble). This reduces the ability of the logo to cut through. It also contributes to the difficulties of rendering at smaller sizes. On that basis, option 2 is welcome, since it cuts down the semantic baggage.

At the same time, I don't find the unbalanced form of option 2 to be very visually pleasing, so I'd be interested to see further development of option 2.

My feeling is that the existing logo contains too many elements (the f, the infinity symbol, and the speech bubble). This reduces the ability of the logo to cut through. It also contributes to the difficulties of rendering at smaller sizes. On that basis, option 2 is welcome, since it cuts down the semantic baggage.

But all those elements are there for a reason. Deleting a part of it (in the case of Candidate #2, the bubble) destroys a part of the message.

At the same time, I don't find the unbalanced form of option 2 to be very visually pleasing, so I'd be interested to see further development of option 2.

The asymmetry of the infinity symbol is indeed another thing I dislike about Candidate #2.

But all those elements are there for a reason. Deleting a part of it (in the case of Candidate #2, the bubble) destroys a part of the message.

But it also makes the message easier to convey. If you look at successful logos, they are generally simple and consist of a single concept (an apple, a window, an "M", a swoosh: not a thing in a thing in a thing).

Just my 2 cents.

@duffy, There were several comments on your blog post regarding candidate 2 looking very similar to another logo. Given that, I am inclined to change my preference back to candidate 1.

I've spent all night on this. This logo meets the requirements of:

• Working well at all sizes (I even got it to work at 32x32!)

• Works well in a single color (Tested on a black/white laser printer)

• Works well on a dark background (And looks great on a dark background, in my opinion)

• Easy to both visually and logically center (It's symmetrical)

@johnmh your single color version isn't single color. It's two color - dark grey, and light grey. How would someone print that using a screen with one bottle of ink? It's called "one color" to refer to the number of ink colors needed to reproduce it. If you had to mix that ink color with white, or black, or some other color to create a second color, then you'd have two ink colors.

@duffy You certainly could not easily print that logo on a silkscreen. Give me a minute and I'll throw together a mockup of this logo for screen printing. Note: I will be doing so on a circuit board, that's just what I know. Would work on other things as well.

Here's a quick mockup of a silkscreen logo. I am not an artist, there's probably a better way to go about this, but this doesn't look bad at all.

Here's an alternate, essentially the same inverted.

Here's the alternative silkscreen variant with a copper layer below the F. Looks really good actually, I'm considering adding "Made with " and then the Fedora logo on future boards I design.

@johnmh I'm sorry, that simply doesn't meet the requirements. I'm going to include some of the explanation as to why that I wrote up in the blog post as well as in the comments, I hope it's helpful:

• the fine lines that are necessary in this approach are not reliably produced across vendors, especially when the logo is reproduced at the sizes we typically scale it for on t-shirt production. we have had varying results with this type of line work, with some vendors not having issues while others produce prints with ink bleeds / blobs because of the limitations of their equipment.

• It makes the logo look like a stencil and changes the line quality, almost gives it a militaristic / industrial kind of stencil / spray-paint / un-polished feel. People may have their opinions about Fedora, but we definitely don’t want to support anything that would make it appear as if it’s unpolished / rough. The thick black stencil lines added to create a boundary between the ‘f’ and the infinity behind it are really prominent element that doesn’t exist in the real logo, and gives off a connotation of ‘cutting’ or ‘breaking’ things. In short, it drastically changes the design of the logo.

Thank you for your efforts - If you want to discuss this further I would really like to do that off this ticket. You can email me at duffy at fedoraproject dot org.

Really, "some vendors not having issues while others produce prints with ink bleeds / blobs because of the limitations of their equipment" sounds like a reason to choose the vendors with the best results, not a reason to change the logo. I thought this might be one of the issues, and that's not really surprising.

As for the logo looking like a stencil, yeah. That's what I made, because, as I said, I'm not an artist, and this is just the easiest way to logically generate a stroke around individual elements. However, being a stencil certainly doesn't look "militaristic, industrial, spray paint or unpolished." With silkscreen printing, you're pretty limited, as I'm sure you're aware. For example, my own company's logo drops its background entirely when doing screen printing, an option for us, but not required at all with the Fedora logo. The only time that this logo actually looks "rough" is when it's printed with a dot matrix printer rather than a real silkscreen process, such as with PCBs, and the issue isn't really to do with requiring two colors, but with the sharp angles at "low resolutions". For example, the outside becomes point to point, not really circular. That said, even at insanely low resolutions on a rendering of dot matrix printing for PCBs, the logo looks great!

Here's a variant with a copper layer behind the infinity symbol, which I think I'm going to start using for my own PCB silkscreens.

When printed, this one would be 0.5' x 0.5'.

@duffy Would it not be best to discuss this in public, where other members of the community could chime in? In my opinion, it is best if a potential logo change is a community decision, not something that the Design team or Council just throws out there.

As I've demonstrated, several of the issues mentioned in the first ticket are quite easily solvable without changing the logo entirely.

@johnmh no, this is unfortunately not productive and is rehashing and replaying discussions that have already taken place much earlier in this ticket and now in the blog post. Thank you for your understanding.

Small problem, with both Candidate 1 and 2 marks, I think is the f is hard to see. It may not need to be more prominent than it is, and if it's intentional to demote the prominence of f substantially from the current mark, then it's a successful change.

I prefer the (standalone, no bubble) mark of Candidate 1, but the overall strategy of Candidate 2 I find more compelling. That is, the asymmetry of infinite in Candidate 2 mark I find objectionable.

Thanks all for the work on this, and specially @duffy for the blog post summarising the discussion here.

I'd argue that for a random someone that already has passing knowledge of what the logo is supposed to look like, Candidate 1 is a better pick. While I really Candidate 2, I'll agree with what was raised further up, that there's quite a bit of recognition on the current logo already, so I'd vote for the one with the furthest detraction for that. Or, to put the feedback in question form:

Which of the two candidates would I better recognise as "the Fedora logo", being somewhat familiar with the existing one?

As for the font change, the change to an open font is greatly welcome. To be honest, in reading the original post, I was truly surprised this wasn't done sooner (if not originally).

Now, at the risk of asking something that was raised before (I tried searching for key terms I could think of, but either I couldn't find it, or it hasn't come up), I've got three separate questions:

First, as from the discussion above, the logo is composed of three parts: the bubble (speech), the infinite symbol (boundless) and the f (fedora). The way this was stylised makes it impossible to print in one colour without giving up one of the elements, hence the idea to drop the bubble. Was there any discussion given on, perhaps, giving up the "infinite" part instead? Either by simply making the shaded part the same colour as the bubble, or (if you forgive my lack of graphical skills) maybe like the third example in this example, except with the bottom-left and top-right lines further extending another 90 degrees. This keeps it "closer to home" on the existing design?

I could probably summarise that by stating that, given a choice between the "f" and the "infinity", I'd probably prefer to be closer to the former than to the latter as an icon, specially in smaller, colour limited or harder to read printings.

Second, I really liked the asymmetric design in the second logo. To give feedback in question form again, "if the f/infinite symbol was made asymmetric, would that perhaps (with perhaps some ratio tuning) work to solve the alignment/sharp corner vs round corner issue?" Would that allow us to keep the bubble?

Third, I see both the logo designs (and the font choice) leaves out the "left side" of the line across the "f". I've searched around but (perhaps due to my lack of design skills/terminology) could not find any definite reason for it). Is there any specific reasoning for dropping the "plus" shape in the middle, in favour of a "right-side only" F? It's my (personal) opinion that the "+" in the middle really contributes to the logo, and if possible I'd like to see it retained.

Could we have:

∞ Fedora

this is as simple as it gets so should be easy to print.

Seriously though, why can't we just use the infinity symbol without anything else, would it be too simplistic?

If it's diagonal this should be distinct enough and if the bubble is optional it doesn't look much more complicated.

even the slogan could be concise:
f(x) → ∞

If anything other than the "stencil" idea that I put forward, I would prefer just the 'f' in the symbol for the two-color variant. I actually wouldn't have of that without ojn's input. :)

Either by simply making the shaded part the same colour as the bubble, or (if you forgive my lack of graphical skills) maybe like the third example in this example, except with the bottom-left and top-right lines further extending another 90 degrees.

This was what I was trying to convey: Imgur

I like this one that duffy posted on the blog
https://blog.linuxgrrl.com/2019/01/09/which-new-fedora-logo-design-do-you-prefer/#comment-7834

it looks nice with this cyanish futuristic blue.

@ojn in context, I posted that as an example to demonstrate why that won't work as a solution. it is too stencil-like.

On Thursday, January 10, 2019 6:07:10 PM EST M=E1ir=EDn Duffy wrote:

duffy added a new comment to an issue you are following:
@ojn in context, I posted that as an example to demonstrate why that won't work as a solution. it is too stencil-like.
=20
To reply, visit the link below or just reply to this email
https://pagure.io/design/issue/620

Is the issue that it is "too stencil-like"? If so, how does your logo solve=
=20
that issue? By having the variant which is just a squiggly infinity-like=20
symbol? Would you just drop the background?

=2D-=20
John M. Harris, Jr. johnmh@splentity.com
Splentity
https://splentity.com/

RE:
https://blog.linuxgrrl.com/2019/01/09/which-new-fedora-logo-design-do-you-prefer/#comment-7834

I see the f more obviously in the 3rd mark, but every glance at it, at first it looks like the number 8, almost like a sports "stencilled" 8 on a jersey. I don't get the same visual effect with the 1st mark.

To me the diagonal symmetry of the logo represents the balance, as it tilts forward it somewhat reminds of what fedora stands for (feature wise) - to always look forward and improve on things. That said I don't like #2

Why do we even need the words fedora next to the logo?

A lot of companies only mostly use the logo, like Apple.

And that one from Duffy

Here's another idea based on some of the comments so far. It lacks a certain appeal, but using perspective, allows the infinity to take up a more 'square' space without the awkward diagonal required for the F, and also allows for an 'f' and an infinity in one single mark that is single-colorable without outlining.

Its awesome

I'd pick candidate#2, a strong rebrand in a minimalist sauce where is no longer feel of the classic logo. I guess I like it better because it seems really something new, I see candidate#1 more as a retouch of the old logo.

That's funny because that's exactly why I am for Candidate #1. Why do we need to change the logo for change's sake? Brand recognition is something we cannot afford to just throw away. And minimalism is not really a good thing, either.

So I just found out about this and thought I'd join in to add my opinion.

One thing that always stood out to me about the current logo was the bubble shape, since it reminded me of looking at a hat (perhaps a fedora) from the top down. I understand the reasons for having a logo be all one colour since printing in black and white, or on other places where colour is limited is important. I also understand to some extent not wanting a background to it, strangely enough app icons on phones come to mind for this, since so many places seem to want to impose their own shape on people's brand icons, it seems more simple to just go with the trend and let them.

All that said, I think it would be a shame to let go of what I think is an important and unique part of the logo - when put side-by-side with all the circles and squircles I think the speech bubble dropplet shape stands out.

Overall I'm going to say that I prefer candidate #1 for these reasons.

Speaking of logo redesign... Slack just rebranded with a post here... https://slackhq.com/say-hello-new-logo

Not directly related, but they have speech bubbles and a symmetrical logo.

@duffy had a better process write-up than slacks release! 😀

Just thought I'd share.

I favor candidate #1, but sans bubble.

In candidate #2 I don't like the unequally sized halves of the infinity symbol.

Today I've seen the Froala logo and it reminded me some of the new proposed logos. I'm not saying we should worry, but please have look and evaluate if this is important or not.

https://www.google.cz/search?q=froala+logo

@churchyard thanks for alerting us to that. we aren't going in that direction although we had some brainstorm ideas that had a similar F.

That was super fast. Thanks.

Hello, by chance, I just found out that the https://parseplatform.org/ project has a logo that looks a lot like proposal 2, especially when in a round background.
As I did not found any reference to that project in the current thread, I just wanted to make you aware of it.

Just found out about the logo redesign due to a fedora magazine post. Hope it's not too late to add some ideas.

Also hoping to shift the font choice into a different direction. I've used Source Sans Pro in some (B,D) which I believe is what Core OS uses. It has a nice crisp gothic feel which is in stark contrast to the "bubbliness" of the current font or Comfortaa. Asap (A,C,E) was the other choice which has a lot of similarity in shape to Source Sans Pro, but with some rounded edges. Both are open source fonts, and I feel give a nice fresh feel.

Also an upper case "F" like way back from the old Fedora Core logo. It also ties in with "Fedora" as written in copy of blog posts, tutorials, etc.

As for the logo itself I did try to maintain a lot of aspects from the current logo. There is also a slightly modified version of one of @duffy's (E)

Out of the design priniciples stated here (TED):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnv5iKB2hl4

I designed a new Fedora logo.The beauty lies in simplicity. No more, no less. Simple and beautiful. Clear technology fonts (that will render on LCD like with infinality patches) because Fedora is a technology company and simple logo, which is symmetrical, has no issues (fits either in square or circle- but is without!). Represents: "f" of fedora, represents "infinity", represents "talk-collaboration" from both: top to bottom, where it meets in the middle to be crossed - ie where ideas cross.

Simple, meaningful and beautiful. Beauty lies in simplicity. We do not need to figth the shortcomings of the old design but rather take the best from it and push it to a better future.

https://i.postimg.cc/fW8TMxXF/New-Fedora-Logo.png

[url=https://postimages.org/][img]https://i.postimg.cc/fW8TMxXF/New-Fedora-Logo.png[/img][/url]

Hello, by chance, I just found out that the https://parseplatform.org/ project has a logo that looks a lot like proposal 2, especially when in a round background.
As I did not found any reference to that project in the current thread, I just wanted to make you aware of it.

There seems to be a bunch of similar logotypes to those that were recently proposed,
just found this one https://8tracks.com/media

@robbiespeed unfortunately we're really at the final tweaks stage here. i do like your new f shape - we mostly stuck with the same rounded look and didnt experiment too much with sharp edges, and i like how they look. because it's at a tilt, though, inside the fedora bubble it kind of looks like it's going to tip over. do you feel the imbalance / tension there? probably it'd work better outside of the bubble, what do you think? did you experiment with that?

@duffy personally I don't notice an imbalance if inside the bubble, I tried for a organic shape, but could spend more time refining it if that direction could use exploring. I drew the shape outside the bubble then dropped it in, mostly to tie it back to the old logo. Here's the uncoloured versions with the bubble removed:

It feels less grounded to me without the bubble due to the asymmetry of overall whitespace around the logo. The second one down doesn't quite suffer from this though, due to the cut away on both sides.

I did also experiment with a couple non "bubble-wrapped" ideas too.

Bubbles on both sides around the infinity to help balance things:

No bubbles, more subtle "f", balanced. Has the cut-away of the "f" represented as lighting on the infinity:

They were rough sketches done in mypaint, but I'd be happy to take them into inkscape and clean them up if there's interest.

Since, Korora Project is no longer exist I would like to post their logo for the inspiration purposes in case some of you has not seen it (Korora was a small Fedora based distro).

just wish that the new Fedora logo will be as awesome

hi

lets consider this ticket frozen for now. thanks

@duffy What are our next steps?

@mattdm i have two final iterations I'd like to present to the council and maybe we could decide in a council meeting that way? what do you think? is it possible to get on the council schedule?

@duffy Yes. I'll ping you on IRC about details.

I'm closing this ticket since it's served its purpose, we have a design approved by the council (https://pagure.io/Fedora-Council/tickets/issue/248), and the next steps will have to be completed via other tickets.

Hello,
i am new to this discussion. Actually I prefer the design I have seen with a font that I use to spell Fedora in lowease. I will attach an image. The font is "Plymdale"

You are beating a dead horse, the new logo is already finalized.

In addition, the Plymdale font appears to be only "free as in beer", not "free as in speech", so it does not fit the requirements anyway.