[LispSea] LispSea logo

[Brandon J. Van Every]

Daniel J Pezely wrote:
> Brandon wrote:
> > For shits and giggles, how about a LispSea logo?
>
>
> What?  You don't like the cappuccino inside parens?
>
> ...or have you not been to http://wiki.alu.org/lispsea
> since early last week?

Oops, my bad!  Yes I did see it, multiple times... and I promptly forgot 
it, multiple times.  Which means it's not entirely doing its job.  Hmm, 
now what's working about it?

Those are good parens.  I like the shape of the parens.  But they are 
black, and so they blend right into the rest of the black headers of the 
webpage.  I am not inclined to regard the parens as a logo, but rather 
as a textual mark.  If they were a different color, or if the black 
LispSea text wasn't immediately above them, and black text wasn't 
flowing out to the side of them, it would work better.  For instance, 
putting the logo at the top center of the page, alone.  That said, a 
logo should stand out no matter where you put it, or it's not really 
doing its job.

As for the coffee.  I only contemplated this the 1st time I saw it, and 
my reaction was, "Huh?"  I was wondering if it had some relationship to 
the SIGGRAPH Teapot, like this was an endemmic Lisp symbol I just didn't 
know about.  It didn't even cross my mind that a cup of cappuccino 
represents Seattle.  To me it represents Italy, because I've spent time 
there and know what a real capuccino is supposed to be like.  When I 
think of Seattle, I think of lattes.  A tall, milked-down American 
caffeine beverage product, made ubiquitous by Starbucks.  In time, I 
hope Americans become more sophisticated in their taste, but if the beer 
market is any guide it won't happen on a mass scale.

I also find the use of a photograph problematic.  A good logo needs to 
be visually simple and have strong graphic qualities.  A version of it 
should be printable in black & white for letterheads and such, and it 
should look decent that way.  The smooth transitional tones of a 
photograph are not good for logos; in particular, the shadow complexity 
of this one.

I have an additional content problem with the use of a cup of coffee.  
Consider the Java logo, http://www.java.com  Do you really want people 
mistaking Lisp for Java?  Note, however: the Java logo is an excellent 
treatise on what a logo is supposed to be.  Simple, strongly graphical, 
memorable.

In summary:

+1 parens
-1 black
-1 photo
-1 cappuccino

Black and photo can be fixed easily enough.  The cup 'o' Java is a 
dealbreaker.  No can do.  Looking at http://www.seattle.gov/ , I propose 
some version of the Space Needle as a symbol for Seattle.  Yeah that's a 
little dull but a lot of the world knows that building, and "dull" isn't 
a bad thing for business promotion anyways.  I thought about Chief 
Seattle, but that's just gonna look like some injun to everybody else 
out there.  Can anyone think of anything else symbolic of Seattle?  Or 
anything clever, interesting, and memorable about Lisp that would be 
unique to us.  We want to avoid confusing ourselves with other 
languages, technologies, and non-computer products.  The parens will go 
a long way towards that, a lot of things can be reasonably inserted 
between them, but bear it in mind.


Cheers,
Brandon Van Every