Slashdot Mirror
How Famous OS Logos Got Started
Shane O'Neill writes "Ronald McDonald and the NBC Peacock may get more TV air time, but today's operating systems have cool logos, too. Google, Apple, Microsoft and the Linux crowd crafted mascots ranging from cute lizards to circles of life. In this slideshow, we look at the origins of the logos and look ahead to their future."
What about Amiga? Commodore? The Mac 'smile'? MS-DOS?
The article's pretty scant on details even for the logos they did describe. Commodore might not be around any more, but their logo remains iconic.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
One of these colors is not like the others. One of these colors just doesn't belong . . . .
The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.
All this time I thought these were the right logos.
Why not discuss the Apple apple logo and how it changed from Newton to rainbow colors to it's current stark white? IMO the most interesting logo story...
Well, if we want to get technical it is true that red, green, blue, and yellow are all primary colors; RGB being the primary colors of light and yellow being a primary pigment. In all fairness to the writers of TFA, they don't state primary colors of what.
Depends on which version of primary colors you use. For computer displays, they are : red, green, and blue. For art (painting), they are : red, yellow, and blue. So you could say all are primary colors.
Don't bother with the 'article'. It has no insights into any of the logos and is merely idle speculation on the part of the author for the most part.
You have been warned. . .
There are no magic three color pigments that actually exist to make all other colors. red, blue and yellow as the 'mother' colors is just a construct. as far as those TV's are concerned, using the subtractive method (light, not pigment), Red Green Blue ARE the primary colors, because it uses them to make all others it can. Read up on trichromats. You can use lots of 3 different colors as the primary colors.
Really? Which one? Are we talking primary colors of light or pigment? If I were to "Select Distinct Colors From ColorsOfLight Union Select Distinct Colors From ColorsOfPigment"... what would the resulting set be?
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
Red, green and blue are the "additive" primary colours--the three primary components to making any colour with sources of light (computer displays and televisions generally emit light, hence the use of the RGB colour model for video media). You got that one right.
However two of the primary colours "for art" yo9u mentioned aren't technically correct (but they have an historical basis). The "subtractive" primary colours are magenta, yellow and cyan. This is where you get the "CMYK" cartriges for your printers. The K is for blacK (I guess it isn't called CMYB because blue already took the letter B...).
The additive and subtractive primary colours have complementary characteristics. If you combine the light from each of the additive primaries you get white. If you combine pigment of each of the subtractive primaries you get black. The subtractive and additive primaries are each exact complementary colours of each other (the complement of one primary is the combination of the other two primaries), hence:
Red -> complement is green plus blue = Cyan
Green -> complement is red plus blue = Magenta
Blue -> complement is red plus green = Yellow
That is how we get the acronyms for the primary colours: RGB is ordered by wavelength and CMY represents the complement of RGB.
Anyways, science hadn't established modern colour theory before much of the work done by renaissance painters was completed--colour theory of that time was based upon observation and aesthetics. They saw rainbows, came up with colour wheels, saw how their pigments blended and such and came up with their own set of primary colours. In this case they divided the colour wheel into FOUR parts and picked four primary colours such that each primary had another primary as a complement (it was all about subtractive colour theory too--they didn't know much about the additive primaries of light to have the six primaries we have now). Those colours are roughly RED, YELLOW, GREEN and BLUE (picked as they are the most prominent in rainbow spectrums observed in nature).
The colours of the Microsoft Windows logo are the four "renaissance painter's primaries". Each pair complements the other and are both bold and pleasing to the eye. The poster ianare is basically right, all four colours are pri,aries in one sense or another, though the details weren't quite complete.
I always thought the Windows flag was Microsoft laying claim to your computer, and everything on it...
Whatever you get, you wouldn't get four colors.
I just wonder if the upcoming chrome OS is going to get he same scrutiny when it 'phones home' as other OS do.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
If you want to get really technical, Red, Green and Blue are the additive synthesis primary colours, and Yellow, Cyan and Magenta are the subtractive synthesis primary colours.
cmyk?
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
Yes, the Black component can't be called 'B' because of Blue. It gets the 'K' because in printing it's often called the Key colour. (and the added bonus of having that letter in its name)
Not any more you don't. Get out, you're fired. Take a look at the Vectorscope on your way out.