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OO.org Selects Its Own Sea Bird
Elektroschock writes "A new mascot of the OO.org project was announced today: A crazy sea gull. I wonder whether it will help to convince office workers of Open Office. "Andrea [Maggioni]'s contribution is not only beautiful and effective but also illustrates the potential of young people to contribute importantly to real projects under the banner of Free and Open Source Software." Andrea, "whose cheerful drawing, of a fun-looking seagull holding a fish, plays on the "OOo" shorthand of OpenOffice.org"... ehemm, it's a crazy sea gull."
...from "Finding Nemo", where that seagull picks up our fishy hero.
Oh and there's only one 't' in 'mascot'.
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I bet the PETA people will make a bunch of noise over this. Remember when they portrayed that fish out of water at the end of that Faith No More video?
Is that a seagull or a pelican?
At least Sesame Street gets a mascott like Big Bird....and what do we get???
A bald eagle, peregrine or a hawk would be a bit better. Fix up the hair too please!
In Brazil the mascot will look like a perverted psychopath with a thing for fish.
In the MMORPG Ultima Online, everytime someone mutters something like "OOo", it means they are dead... In fact, whatever the ghost says will get translated into strings of "OooOOOOoo" unless you have the Spirit Speak skill...
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Pardon my ignorance, but I fail to see how this is a play on 'OO.o' like the article says (I actually read it! Yay!)
http://ryand.net/oss/abi/abiantgnomepencil.png
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I recognize people by their sigs. Is that a bad thing?
You are correct that given its educational slant, this might be more acceptable. However, if they were to read the same summary I did, I'm sure they wouldn't have picked up on that simple message either, as it was not in the summary.
First off, I'm in advertising, which is different than marketing, I suggest you look up the difference some time. As I stated, I didn't catch the subtlety that the mascot is for a subproject of OO because it was not in the summary and I did not RTFA.
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Why would the mascot of the Schools Project of OOo have any effect on credibility in the business world?
Having logo designed by school children for a school project is just so silly isn't it. The competition wouldn't raise awareness in the target market or anything, would it? And schools hate competitions.
And school children love boring corporate logos.
Surely you have to be able to read to be "in advertising", but obviously not...
Maybe I'm just going to come across as stupid because it's obvious to everyone but me... but why is a crazy seagull holding a fish "a play on the 'OOo' shorthand of OpenOffice.org"? Is this supposed to be the world's most incomprehensible pun, or what?
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I am a lecturer and tutor in Graphic Design at Monash University. Perhaps I can add some comments on why this winning entry does not communicate well: - Its complex. As a rule of thumb a logo or mascot should be legible when printed out at about 10mm square and run through a fax machine. - Its not cheerful. This bird looks dazed and confused like it has been drinking all weekend. - It devalues the OO.org brand by making it look amateurish not accessible. The quicker open source projects take a leaf out of Firefox's approach to branding and identity the better. If open-source projects are going to have any kind of influence on mainstream software usage (which OpenOffice indeed has the potential to) it really needs to get serious with the way it comes across. Please do judge books by their covers and applications by their icons and mascots. No mascot is better than a bad mascot.
*.02c
Second, know that a fish, in the united states, is a non-direct however clear reference to the same. Pussy. Vagina. The odor of both is what has made the two a match in American vernacular.
Now, look at the photo again, and you will see a hard-core, sex crazed bird with two big references to pussy. I am laughing so hard right now I can't breathe. Need... help... and a 15 year old girl created this?!?!? Arrg.... short of breath.... help... too... funny...
I really don't want to cut up someone's work and I think the art itself is fine, but not as the symbol for what could be a very significant piece of software. I don't think I want to trust my sensitive or important files to something that portrays itself as a retarded scavenger bird. I think something simple yet elegant would have been the best choice here.
SIGFAULT
As a professional graphic designer, I'd have to disagree. Moreover, I image most of my colleagues would have opinions similar to the one I am about to voice.
That seagull somewhat works as a mascot (which it is) but not a logo.
Logos need to be simple color pallet . Moreover, logo's need to be scalable and preferably vector based. They should be recognizable at 3/4 squared as well as 4 feet squared. These factors allow one to easily apply a logo to a building, sign, letterhead, etc. Giant complicated bitmap logos are only going to give you problems.
Moreover, simple logos are easier and faster for a human brain to retain. (psychology and sociology are fairly important subjects for graphic designers to understand) People are more likely to gain sense of familiarity and comfortability with a simple logo.
But... anywho... I could go on and on.
Suffice to say, I'm not a big fan of the seagull in it's current state. Mascots can get by with silly complicated forms since they are (usually) not logos. However simplifying their characterization usually increases there ability to gain acceptance.
The seagull is a good start, but it could be cleaned up a bit.
just my 2cents
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So it's been brought up that the OK gesture is offensive in Europe, but has anyone noticed that this girl is FROM Europe? Italy, in particular: "A short interview with Andrea follows, translated from the Italian . . . ."
"You know, when you are 15/16 years old you have several things on your mind other than work... ;-)"
Apparently that's very true.
Cool, I get to plug my new project and be on-topic.
k12wincd is a CD image that includes open office as well as others. Similar to gnuwinCD.
I should be burning 250-300 of these this summer to be handed out in the fall.
"If they have both, tell them we use Linux. And if they have that, tell them the computers are down." -Dave Chapelle
It's a shame - the "OK" gesture the bird is making is not universal in its meaning. In Brazil, Germany and Russia it indicates a certain private orifice and is an insult. In France, it is also an insult. It denotes the number zero or the concept of something being worthless.
I believe in Japan it means something like "I want my change in coins" which, although not particularly insulting, is pretty irrelevant.
Perhaps a "thumbs-up" gesture ought to be GIMPed over the top, at least as part of an i18n package for the countries affected.
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- JRR Tolkien.
Okay, so I realize that this contest was for kids...but not only is the selection ridiculous looking, it's bordering on socially irresponsible:
1) FIRST OF ALL, the seagull looks like it's on drugs (and loving it might i add) with his "Drugs are A OK" hand signal
2) SECONDLY, he's holding a fish that everyone who saw it knows is gonna be devoured by this bird with a bad case of the munchies, and the fish's smile is disturbing (side note: if the fish looked more like Bill Gates, then you might be getting somewhere)
3) THIRDLY, the gull and the fish look a hell of a lot like that little Disney movie, and the Disney Law trolls might come after you. And even if they didn't, with plagiarism running rampant in our school systems, promoting such a blatant rip-off is negligent at best.
Okay, so let's recap...this mascot is endorsing drug usage, plagiarism...and savage consumption of your smiling prey...yep, sounds like an education program to me...OOooo...perfect.
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I think that back in the day, when MSIE 4 had already been released, Gates Foundation gave money to some big Finnish library or whatever. In the news clip, almost all of the library computers had Netscape Navigator 4 on the screen. Well, they did run that on Windows though, but still... And it also made me wonder for how long NN stayed there... =)
The seagull mascot sucks. I know it's for educational use, but it still sucks. Too complex, too flippant, and just plain unprofessional. This is the same general problem with a lot of free software; image. It's not just the logo or mascot either, it's even the names. Case in point, "Windows Internet Explorer" with a clean 3D looking 'e' as it's logo. Compare to "Mozilla" with it's stupid dinosaur logo. Now, any idiot can guess what IE is and what it does simply by the name, and the logo is simple and translates cleanly even in black and white. Can the same be said for Mozilla? NO!! Same goes for The Gimp and host of other really great software. And don't even get me started on the KDE "Kandalf" help screen thing.
This is the same problem with a whole bunch of free Linux based software; compared to their Windows counterparts, their names, logos, and general lack of polish make them look like something cooked up by a bunch of social misfits, hell-bent on being obtuse and cryptic just for the sake of being 133t.
"And now, Frank N. Furter, your time has come. Say 'goodbye' to all of this, and 'hello'... to oblivion!"
I did. There's no reason NOT to expect quality for an educational sub-project. Just because it's for kids doesn't mean it has to look like crap. They are going to want to use it for a lot of things related to promotion of the sub-project. For all intensive purposes, YES, it is a logo. They want to identify their sub-project with it. Sounds like a logo to me. If MS were doing something similar for kids or education, it'd beat the snot out of this, hate to say it.
Sorry, MS and Apple have the bar up HERE for marketing.
A lot of open source stuff is down here. And they'll continue to be down here if the "aww jeez, it's good enough" crowd continues to chant their battle cry.
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