MobileRead Logo Contest: Let's vote!

[slayda]

As close as some are running, maybe you should pick the top few to resubmit their final version & vote again on those.

[searcher]

This is a №1 untill now.

No site name, just some graphic.

How to incorporate the site name into that?

The answer is: no way!

[TadW]

Originally Posted by searcher

How to incorporate the site name into that?

Only the original designer can answer this properly.

[TadW]

There was plenty of time to comment on the designs while there were still being submitted. I don't think now is the right time to disqualify them.

[Jaapjan]

Originally Posted by searcher

This is a №1 untill now. .... No site name, just some graphic... How to incorporate the site name into that?....

Actually I kind of wonder the same thing. The current #1 is fairly compact & looks very neat. And our current logo on the left-top of the site doesn't have MR in it either. Yet.... I do not see how the logo will stay compact while adding the mobileread somewhere.

Ah well. I think it might have been easier if the final version had been submitted already. In other words, meeting the demands placed upon it. Alexander mentioned something about more changes needed but adding a title/name seems fairly radical, not just a small change/finalization.

Obviously I am not disqualifying....

[TadW]

Jaapjan, you are right. My point is we should try to focus on those we like rather than to point out those we don't. For example, my personal favorite is #17, which seems to integrate "MobileRead" quite well.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by searcher

This is a №1 untill now.

No site name, just some graphic.

How to incorporate the site name into that?

The answer is: no way!

Well, my idea is to have the site name as the first line there. That sounds possible.

[yvanleterrible]

At the risk of offending some dear friends and the courageous participants to this enterprising contest. I think we're 'off track' somehow...

First, the idea of a contest is good. Unfortunately albeit out of necessity, we had a time limit to perform by. The period chosen, also, might not have been the right one for most since it coincided with the hectic Christmas holidays: both facts not being propitious to creativity. I hope that this finite limit will not hinder the 'genious idea' that could better represent MR if ever there is one to appear soon.

Further on, to my eye so far, asides from using words, most symbols chosen to represent Mobile Read are partially accurate.

The concept behind MR is abstract, so much so that representation by an object will not do it justice. No one knows what devices will be in ten years and how they will affect reading as an experience compared to now. I will dare to compare this by the use of a single step to represent a stairway through time. No step can accurately show a destination, only its direction. Mobile Read is a witness to how we read and how we will read, not only in the traditional ways and the new ways but also those to come. Therefore we should not limit its representation (logo) to an old or present device. A tough one to solve.

I can not be positive and help in any other way that, in the skills required for drawing we are taught that the negative shapes suggest the positive ones.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by yvanleterrible

The concept behind MR is abstract, so much so that representation by an object will not do it justice. No one knows what devices will be in ten years and how they will affect reading as an experience compared to now. I will dare to compare this by the use of a single step to represent a stairway through time. No step can accurately show a destination, only its direction. Mobile Read is a witness to how we read and how we will read, not only in the traditional ways and the new ways but also those to come. Therefore we should not limit its representation (logo) to an old or present device. A tough one to solve.

Yeah, that was pretty much my thinking when I designed my logo (#24)... representative of past and future, but abstract. And for the record, MobileRead can easily be added to it!

[aapezzuto]

did anyone else almost vote for something using the wrong select button... the button to be used is the one below the image... I almost did

[yvanleterrible]

Originally Posted by Alexander Turcic

...number of submissions was so overwhelming (with over 90 logo and 140 tagline entrants) that we felt we needed to narrow it down to a somewhat more reasonable size (which was tough, thankfully, Bob and I are finally speaking to each other again).

Your idea of restricting the choices was a good one but you shouldn't have done it yourselves. The logos left show your tastes, and frankly... well I don't share them. What should have been done is to do two different votes, first a preselection and this one being the second. No offense but the actual logo was instated according to your tastes...

And it would have prevented your friendship a good dose of stress...

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Yeah, that was pretty much my thinking when I designed my logo (#24)... representative of past and future, but abstract. And for the record, MobileRead can easily be added to it!

Could you set the link, I can't find it?

[ste9hen]

Although it won't change things now, perhaps we could comment on which ones we feel should have been included?

[NatCh]

I don't see why you couldn't, though a separate thread for that purpose might make things less confusing to folks who wander into the middle of the discussion.

[vivaldirules]

Originally Posted by yvanleterrible

The concept behind MR is abstract...

I guess I don't see it that way. I thought MR was about reading from a portable device that is not paper. I know the devices we have today may not closely resemble those of the future but I think viewers 20 years from now would readily recognize a digital slate reader. I know people will use phones for this, too, but a phone is more often used as a phone and so it would be confusing to use one in the logo (like the one we have now). We could have a scroll of epaper but I think it is again too confusing. I see nothing inadequate about a logo that includes a digital slate reader as long as we don't try to make it look too much like a particular model currently available. I also think that people have had a fair amount of time (since August 22 when the first poll was put up and people suggested replacements) to think about it and work on their submissions. And I'm generally pleased with how many there were and their quality. I'm pretty happy.

[yvanleterrible]

Originally Posted by vivaldirules

I guess I don't see it that way. I thought MR was about reading from a portable device that is not paper. I know the devices we have today may not closely resemble those of the future but I think viewers 20 years from now would readily recognize a digital slate reader. I know people will use phones for this, too, but a phone is more often used as a phone and so it would be confusing to use one in the logo (like the one we have now). We could have a scroll of epaper but I think it is again too confusing. I see nothing inadequate about a logo that includes a digital slate reader as long as we don't try to make it look too much like a particular model currently available. I also think that people have had a fair amount of time (since August 22 when the first poll was put up and people suggested replacements) to think about it and work on their submissions. And I'm generally pleased with how many there were and their quality. I'm pretty happy.

I see your points and respect them.
But why then are we changing the actual logo? Could it be that when it was made there were no other mobile devices for reading than phones? Eink has made a great impact on mobile reading and it could be as easily outclassed by any other newer type of device. We need a logo with durability, immune to fashions. #3 is closer but not quite there yet. It shows no device, it shows its origin in books but nothing for the concept of mobility. This concept, as to now, is abstract and only shown through actual devices related to reading. With the coming of flexible eink sheets, the pad will be demoded in less than two years. Yes the people will be able to equate the symbol of a pad with reading but an old one just like the phone we have now. Will we have to replace that logo again?
As for the time required for creation, I quite disagree. The logos I've did before took me more than a 100 trys each in at least two weeks full time work. Who's got that time other than someone paid for it!?! Yes these logos will go through professional hands but often that little spark that makes something successful comes from the first jet and may not find further refinement improvable. Hey, professionals can take months to perfect a design and so do artists. It's hard to make a professional look and requires huge amounts of time.

To me the future of mobile reading is more closely related to the advances in computer technology, where access to databanks, ours or others, will be done online and viewed on smaller, lighter and more convenient devices where books will not belong to us. That is an even more abstract concept to express in pictures and one Mobile Read is moving to; because it is the next step.
That's a further cry from the actual fight between paper and ebooks. The better proof of which is that we were all seduced by ebooks from the start and are now fighting for its inception to a more popular approval. Ebooks will not move back.
If we are so passionate about them, then the spark that set us can reach others and it becomes a duty for us to make inroads under the best light possible without creating ennemies in the process. Take time to perfect the image.