OpenWetWare:Logo and Promo Poster Discussion

This page is dedicated to discussion with a graphic artist Jen Cook-Chrysos about coming up with a new look (logo, color scheme, page layout, poster and business cards) for OpenWetWare. Jen is posting ideas here and any OpenWetWare user is welcome to give her feedback on this page. The more feedback, the better!

Jen's Sketches: 2

In round one, most people said that the idea of many people adding pieces was good and green was good, and the font of the logo was good, but the image did not connote biology and was too complicated. There were various impressions of the scale of the people to the blocks. People suggested referencing some biological feature, such as DNA, plasmids, sunflowers, cells, or other symbols of biology.

So, here is round 2. I have learned that we are not able to use the design based on Jenny Nguyen's logo. In creating a new one, I am hoping to meld the logo with the emblem idea. This way, the pictoral aspect of the logo can be used on subsequent pages as an emblem, but when they are used together they will be more integrated. These sketches are not polished. I am just throwing out my brainstorming ideas to see if any hit the mark. I will fine tune the ones people are interested in. None of these ideas have people in them, because perhaps that was too complicated. However, some of them include a gloved hand offering (or receiving) an "O" plasmid, which is meant to suggest openness, giving, receiving, in the scientific community. Others show the plasmid "O" made of smaller pieces. Other logos use other means to represent biology. Let me know what you think. The ideas are titled and numbered. Please include these in your comments so I know which ones you are talking about. Thanks! --Jencc 14:01, 4 February 2006 (EST)

plasmids plants

• I really like the hand and the "sunflower" (plants #3). I also prefer the green over the blue, and actually like the darker green you used in some of the earlier designs. Is there any way to combine the flower and the hand? Potentially these designs could appear in different places, but I think we probably want to go with one core design to have better recognition across platforms. Looking forward to seeing more.--Kathleen 15:51, 4 February 2006 (EST)
  • I have addressed the issues you mention--see plants #4--Jencc 20:48, 5 February 2006 (EST)
    • I definitely like this new design. I like this better than the plasmid alone because I think the DNA going into a flower encompasses a broader scope of biology. I know we won't ever be able to please everyone, but this may be more memorable than a plasmid-type icon as there may be many people who are interested in OWW and are not familiar with/do not use plasmids. The "flower" also implies something that is growing and needs to be cultivated, a good analogy for OpenWetWare in my opinion. You may also want to try reducing the font size on "wetware" to reduce the space next to "open". This would also help to emphasize the "open" aspect and deemphasize the "wetware" as some people had suggested previously. Thanks for giving us such great options to choose from!--Kathleen 23:05, 5 February 2006 (EST)
    • For emphasis, try changing the color of OPEN to the background of the sunflower, and change WETWARE to the lighter color. Right now, when I read the logo, it looks like "PEN WETWARE." This may help the word OPEN stand out. --Jennyn 11:18, 6 February 2006 (EST)

• I LOVE the hand one with the insertion in the plasmid (PLASMID 3)!!! You elegantly captured EXACTLY what I was trying to convey in the other logos I tried to design. It looks like a VERY improved depiction of that I attempted. Yours I really like because it is clean, simple, and the emblem is completely separable from the rest of the text without losing its meaning. This one does an excellent job in illustrating the message of "open community" with the palm facing up, giving the impression that we are "offering" to the community. The plasmid on the O, with the insertion portrays OPEN and is a great representation of biology. Possible ways to improve design: Darken (or change the color of) the plasmid in the O or the hand that holds it to bring more attention the two images, and make WETWARE darker so that focus on the text doesn't die out after we see the awesome emblem, while not taking away attention from the OPEN which tends to be washed out because it is completely white inside. I am excited that we are not using the original logo, as it did not successfully portray OWW as open-source-biology as this new design does. You've brought very memorable designs to the table. I like 'em! Plasmid 3 is my vote! --Jenny Nguyen

--What about this (see plasmid #3 again)--Jencc 20:48, 5 February 2006 (EST)

• Jen, this brings out each element much better! I like how the hand is now a gloved-hand, it's cute. Would the text and plasmid would stand out more if the outline was black rather than blue? Just a thought, wouldn't hurt to compare. --Jenny Nguyen

• I don't really like any of the the flower logos. I don't really like that they take two lines of text rather than one (splitting OpenWetWare into two words instead of one). I really like some of the plasmid logos. I like the hand and the outlining from the second last logo (plasmid 3?), and the plasmid from the last one (with the genetic elements marked rather than the double helix). Also, an ungloved hand might be better. -- tmt 11:07, 6 February 2006 (EST)

• I like the plasmid logos in general, the 4th down in particular (gloved hand with DNA in plasmid). I think that the text colors are a little blah together (the green with blue outline). Perhaps a stronger color than the green would not require an outline. Also, I don't care for any of the plant logos. --Dcook 14:44, 7 February 2006 (EST)

Jen's Sketches: 1a

Hi everyone. Thanks for so much good feedback. I am going back to the drawing board to see if I can incorporate some of the ideas you have come up with. Before I read all your comments, I created this additional idea--I am calling it 1a because it doesn't really address many of the issues mentioned below (since I hadn't read them yet). I came up with this one because the response I got from Felice Frankel was that she thought the logo was too cute. I took out the people to see if it would look less cute. However, I see that it is much busier, when people appear to be calling for less busy. So stay tuned...I will come up with something simpler that still shows people building something that is clearly biological. (I hope).

Finally, things have slowed down for me this week because my baby daughter has been very sick with an ear infection and hasn't been able to go to daycare. I will hopefully make more progress towards the end of the week. --Jencc 22:21, 31 January 2006 (EST)

no people

Jen's Sketches: 1

Here are my first round of ideas based on the discussion below. I emphasized the word "Open" rather than "wet" so that the connection to biology becomes more prominent than the connection to bench work, in order to be more inclusive. I used the green color for that reason as well, to connote biology or life science without making the connection to "wet" or water the way blue would do (although I do include a blue color scheme at the bottom).

I kept the strong aspects of the logo developed by Jenny Nguyen, which really makes the word "OPEN" convey that concept by letting the sides open out into the white background.

The emblem shows many small people icons building the "O" in "OPEN". The "O" also looks a bit like a plasmid. They could be inserting pieces or taking pieces away. I tried to keep this pretty simple. One of the versions shows only one piece being removed or inserted at the top, and looks more like a plasmid with DNA being inserted.

There are business card ideas for each of the different website styles (which are all variations on the same theme).

There is also my runner-up idea for the logo font and an alternative color scheme in blue.

Please comment and feel free to make suggestions! --Jencc 21:05, 26 January 2006 (EST)

Jen: Thanks so much for posting these ideas here. It's great for everyone to be able to respond. And also, welcome to OpenWetWare! BTW, you might want to wait for a few more people to chime in before making any changes ... don't just go with my opinion. -- Reshma

Emblem Ideas

emblem 1 emblem 2 emblem 3

So I like how emblems 1 and 2 seems to suggest the dynamic nature of the site cause pieces of the O are being put in and removed. And I also like that it has people in it cause it suggests community. However, I am not sure that it really suggests biology to me. I don't think the O really looks like a plasmid to me right off the bat. It would be kind of nice if people saw the emblem and came away with the impression of biology immediately. Also, perhaps the people should be less triangular in shape? I can't really explain why. And perhaps more of the emblem should be in the dark green color with a white background so that it is more striking at first glance. Just my two cents. Feel free to contradict me! -- Reshma

The idea is great how a community contributes one piece at a time to some greater picture! However, a simpler design would better complement the text logo, thus will be more memorable to the community. People will be able to associate the text with the emblem. I agree with Reshma in considering an image that suggests biology. This is a great start for the emblem. -- Jenny

One thing I was thinking is keep the idea of the O with people putting in and removing one or more pieces and just have a stylized DNA double helix interweaving through the O along a diagonal. I am not sure if this would make the emblem too busy or not. You could eliminate the "double layers" of the O to make it simpler. -- Reshma

I like the concept -- lots of little people contributing -- but overall I think it is way too busy, and the relative sizes of the "O" and the people are off. Usually, with something like the current plasmid emblem, you can't see the individual bits of information while looking at the plasmid overall -- you have to zoom in to actually read anything. This is true with protein/gene interaction networks too, so it's kind of becoming a theme in biology: lots of information, the particulars of which are not important when looking at the big picture overall, but the specifics of which are available when you need to take a closer look. Maybe that kind of thinking can guide the sizing of logo elements. Green is nice too. -- Danielle

The dark green background makes the emblem stand out better. What about an outer layer of little bricks (perhaps with smaller people) and a continuous, thinner, solid inner layer? I also agree it could be rounder. I think green and round are biological enough without the trite double helix: you could as well make the emblem into a diaton or a sunflower head. -- Alethea

I agree with Danielle's comments about the size of the people relative to the 'O', also like the building of the O from smaller pieces, and the green color scheme. My main comment would be that there's not much meaning in the 'O' -- 'OWW' clearly indicates openwetware, but I think the single 'O' doesn't really do so any more than a random abstract object being built by little people would. I'm not suggesting going back to 'OWW', but rather that we drop incorporating the letters at all and just go with people building up something else, whether a sunflower head built out of double helices, or whatever. --Jason

These are great. I like emblem two the most because it is most evocative of a plasmid. One suggestion is that the people could all be working together to get the final piece(s) of the O in place. So basically less people (i also agree that the people would look better if it were less angular) working on the task of putting the final pieces together. Finally, not too make it even busier, in some of the emblems, the removed pieces are evocative of a W; I kind of like it, but tt may be too subtle and geeky for others though. --Sri Kosuri

Web Ideas

website 1 website 2 website 3

The green theme for the site looks pretty nice and appropriate. I like it. I like that the color behind the OPEN in OpenWetWare is a bit darker in websites 2 and 3. It seems to stand out a bit more. I also like the font that the description is in. I also kind of like the white background behind the description in website 1. -- RS

I like the clean look and shades of green. Site #1 has the best layout. I'm not crazy about the dark green logo background. -- Danielle

Business Card Ideas

business card 1 business card 3

I like the second design but I think we might want to go with an emblem without a background color. It seems like it would translate more easily to different spaces and mediums (i.e. T shirts, business cards, website etc.) -- Reshma

Agreed, don't like the background color. --Sri Kosuri

Is there any other text/message we might want on the card? -- Danielle

Alternative logo style

alternate logo altenate color scheme

I don't think that this alternate logo stands out as well as the original. And I think I prefer the green color scheme. --Reshma Shetty

I think the font is too bare and so doesn't have the same impact or visual interest as the original logo. --Dcook 14:52, 30 January 2006 (EST)--

The font has a very old look to it ("Ye Olde Shoppe" kind of font). I would perfer something more modern looking -- tmt 21:08, 2 February 2006 (EST)

General Ideas

I know Felice Fraenkel had some contact with Drew and maybe the lab? She seems to be good at visualizing abstract concepts which might be what we need (see the comment below). Anyone know her enough to be able to talk to her about it and see if she has comments/suggestions?--BC 14:46, 13 January 2006 (EST)

--I know Felice from when I worked at Whitehead Institute. Would you like me to get in touch with her and see if she has any input for the logo or poster design?--Jencc 11:19, 23 January 2006 (EST)
--Hi Jen, if you want to talk about this project with Felice that would be awesome. Based on what I've seen of her work she could be very helpful to you and us.--BC 12:20, 23 January 2006 (EST)

We also need to address the issue for how to communicate what we want. How does one represent the idea of on open biology community in a graphic? It seems like the ideas behind OpenWetWare might be difficult to represent graphically. Maybe we should think about abstract ways of expressing what OWW represents (adjectives and adverbs, analogies, mental images?) in order to help Jen come up with ideas.

One concern that has already been raised is that the name "OpenWetWare" conjures up the notion of wetlab work and possibly excludes computational folk. So perhaps whatever scheme we choose should try to attract both groups. --RS 18:34, 11 January 2006 (EST)

Business cards

• Go with simple design (just logo and simple text), or get artist to do the whole thing? ~tmt
• Here are a few pdf's with some sample business card layouts; you can print them yourself on card stock and cut to size, or we can talk about other designs and printing. --Dcook 09:56, 13 January 2006 (EST)
  • Business Cards with Grey OPENWETWARE Logo
  • Business Cards with Blue OWW Logo

There is also a page of older logo ideas.

http://openwetware.org

a wiki serving the biological science and engineering community

email admin@openwetware.org for an account

Great design Reshma! An addendum to this idea is to have a back that just has something like

[[DNA Ligation]] or [[Victor3 Plate Reader]] or [[Quantifying GFP Flourescence]] or [[Miller Assay]]

stuff like that.

also, definitely need glossy!!! --Sri Kosuri 12:18, 1 Dec 2005 (EST)

Logo

I have been spending a lot of effort coming up with a logo for OWW but have been unsuccessful because I am trying to convince people who have no idea what to expect, and I'm pulling ideas from a broad avenue. Let's make this easier and set a list of criteria to describe what we want, for example, color scheme, number of elements, traditional, contemporary, typographic, etc. These are factors that will help narrow our canvas space, and in turn help the graphic artist, or even myself design the desired logo.

Do we want our logo to be...

1. Typographical: font speaks for itself? FedEx, Banana Republic, MIT, Dell, Google, ESPN, Nature, 3M
2. Image: a picture speaks 1000 words? Apple, NCRR, Gateway, Firefox
3. Text in shape? UPS, McGraw Hill Education, Business Week, ABC news, WIRED
4. Image + Text? Codon Devices, UT, Continental Airlines, Discover Card, NBC
5. Text in image? Boston Red Sox, Regency Cinemas, Starbucks Coffee, Burger King

Additionally, we should consider...

1. Ease of duplication
2. Memorable
3. Recognizable
4. How much color to use, etc.

So, these are some things that we should keep in mind and set so that we can move on with getting a logo! :) --JN 17:16, 13 January 2006 (CST)

--I really like the logo that you have on the site and on the business card idea above. The font suggests industry, which to me conveys the practical, "wet" hands-on side of biology while not actually picturing beakers or pipettes that might make some feel excluded, such as the bioinformatics people. The best thing about it is that it conveys the idea of "Open" just by leaving the side of the "N" open, and using the positive and negative space. It is a great font, and very clean. What I would like to do is create a smaller graphic, this time more pictorial, to go with it. This small graphic would be an emblem that could be used on each page of the site, and would convey the idea of an open biology community perhaps using some of the ideas below. The next thing to do would be to get the rest of the site and materials to follow this same style. I will work up some ideas and see what people think. --Jencc 11:30, 23 January 2006 (EST)

Some ideas

1. A DNA double helix wrapped around the world.
2. Stick people spelling out A T G C (like YMCA :) ).
3. A double helix that opens up (unwound) in the center, encircling a globe. (or a bunch of people, like a hogtie!!)

Poster

• How about having whatever graphics, and then putting on questions like...

Need information on DNA Ligation?

Ever wondered where you could keep your protocols?

Need a place to discuss scientific issues with a group of people?

Need an easy way to keep your website up-to-date?

(if questions, which is a good idea, then the questions themselves become really important. they must be catching, amusing, and relevant).

• We may also want to focus on some of the more "unique" aspects of the wiki, like protocols/types of pages that are visited most often, most-edited pages, or things that are not available/difficult to find elsewhere. We may already have information as to what people are interested in and, thus, what may draw new people in (i.e. stats, popular pages). This is likely different for different people, so we may also want to consider some kind of wiki-poll for current users: Why are you here? What do you like best? The poster questions should attempt to encompass as many diverse OWW aspects as possible, because OWW is going to mean different things to different people. We should also highlight the dynamic, responsive nature of the wiki as an advantage over traditional static resources. I also agree that the questions should be catchy. Perhaps we can take some inspiration from the apparently abandoned list of BBF t-shirt slogans.--Kathleen