Week two came and went on the Evoke network and, like all complex systems, the divergent thinking brought on some growing pains. All that and a practical approach to food security in this Evoke, Week Two update.
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It is with great pleasure that after months of behind the scenes work I’m now able to announce the CORE program. CORE stands for Computers for Ongoing Research and Education. Its an initiative done in conjunction with the ElectroRegeneration Society that asks “Why shouldn’t ALL freshmen have the tools to compete at the university level?”
Continue Reading...Yesterday was moving day for the ElectroReGeneration Society (ERGS – previously mentioned in regards to some logo work I was doing). Computers for Kids was a similar non-profit that is disbanding. After discussion it was determined that their stored equipment would be used to help seed the ERGS.
What I had assumed would be a few desktop machines ended up being much more. In fact, the main effort of the day turned out just trying to clean out one of the many storage units. As you can see in the pics above, it took an entire 25-foot Penske truck just to haul around 400 Dell computer monitors from the storage unit to the ERGS warehouse.
There’s a considerable amount of work left to do before we can begin turning around hardware to low-income, disadvantaged, or other deserving folks. But I am heartened by the fact that there doesn’t seem to be a problem with the supply. Businesses will often depreciate their computer hardware over three year time spans. And while, on the books, that equipment is now worth zero it still holds a tremendous amount of potential for the right audience.
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Continue Reading...The ElectroReGeneration Society (hereafter referred to as ‘ERGS’) is a new non profit being founded, in part, by Pete Ashdown. You may know Pete – he runs Utah’s oldest ISP, Xmission, is a frequent contributor to local groups and worthy causes, and ran for Senate against Orrin Hatch in 2006. I’ve mentioned him before.
In the description from the wiki the ERGS’s mission is to:
…operate as a charitable organization in repurposing and reuse of electronics and information technology in the support of children, low-income families and individuals, people with disabilities, nonprofits, the Utah computer enthusiast community and other deserving people and organizations.
The name is an homage to the Victorian age – a time when there was a society for about any cause. And, because people didn’t have Idol to run home and watch, they could be liberally lengthy with their titles. A logo, a foundation for larger brand identity to be built upon, not only has to clear the normal hurdles for acceptance: clarity, remixability, consistent across various colors etc. It also has to clue the viewer into just what an ElectroReGeneration Society may do, as the name itself more confabulates than collaborates. If it could do that and look vaguely regal/old-timey/crest-like (as the suggested visual aid shown) then so much the better.
As usual I started by watching TV. Then I think I had a bowl of ice cream. Eventually, I got around to sketching ideas. I started with trying to identify archetypes and appropriate symbols – any existing iconology that could convey the appropriate meaning.
They recycle symbol quickly seemed like a must have. But rather than have a plain-jane circular item the ‘recycle triangle’ held some promise for possibly having an ‘Eye of Horus’ (aka ‘Eye of Providence‘) treatment.
The next problem was how to represent technology. While upcoming volunteer events would have us lugging around unwanted desktops from the corporate sector, big beige boxes would only date the logo. Laptops also seemed like they would guarantee any logo would have a limited shelf life as increasingly powerful tablets, notepads, and smart phones transition to the fore. Microchips were nice but, made too small, just looked like little bugs.
The three pronged plug appeared to be an acceptable alternative. Anything electric had to have a plug of some sort. It was standardized and recognizable anywhere in North America. So with sketching done and main thematic elements chosen a quick mashup was attempted. For the conceptual work I chose to remain with a gray scale palette; the design needed to stand alone without any gradient color or embossed shenanigans:
Comments ranged from “why is it flipping me off” to “is that a shop vac with hoses sticking out?”. A revised version that attempted to clarify thing, after which a lot of ringlet cruft was then added, then was put up for review:
Commentators on this one rightly pointed out that the ‘EST 2009′ was hard to read. And while some thought the center ‘unity circle’ now appeared to be rising like a phoenix from the ashes, there was still one too many “a middle finger?” comments for my comfort. The recycle symbol, also much to my chagrin, seemed to be getting lost by having additional elements laid partially on top. It was time to move the plug somewhere else.
A heptagram is a 7-sided star. A traditional symbol for warding off evil it was often used in early law-enforcement badges. Arranging the plug points into a heptagram and cleaning up the text I arrived at the third version:
Comments on this item included:
Reminds me of the Brotherhood of Nod.
Ooooo… Better. Or:
has that victorian mad scientist, scholar adventurer feel to it
Score!
Of course, there was also:
they look kinda phallic
Gggrrr. I guess one man’s Jules Verne inspired logo work is another man’s dildo explosion.
But while I ponder that, tomorrow, Thursday, August 6th, from 9am to around 2pm, the ERGS need help setting up the warehouse. Another local non-profit is closing up shop and seeding the ERGS with our first batch of equipment. If you are available to help check out the wiki page for more information. Let’s take the largess that would normally end up in a landfill and do some good!
Continue Reading...If code is poetry, then design is a pop song; when done right its catchy, powerful, and destined to rattle about your head long after the first impression has past. However, that also means that everyone has an opinion, thinks they could do it better, and are accustomed to way too much autotune.
As I’ve blogged about previously (here and here) I’m on the Utah Social Social Media Awards planning committee. As such, I was tasked with coming up with a logo for the awards itself.
Brainstorming, regardless of design, is fun. The Salt Lake Social Media Club, who is presenting the awards, already have a very clean, iconic logo (shown below) done by the effervescent Jantzie :
The straightest path from empty workspace to finished logo would be parrot the existing word bubble, contort a Utah-shaped word bubble around the words ‘Utah Social Media Awards’ and call it a day, as below:
However, there’s some serious problems here. The biggest of which is that not one, but two tired tropes are being rolled together. It’s like the Voltron of Cliches. For example, throwing the Utah shape at anything associated with the state is common almost to the point of being hackneyed – a five minute Google search turned up the following:
(It’s an issue with any agreed upon state icon – South Dakota, for example, swims in Rushmore heads. )
And that’s nothing compared with the overuse of word bubbles to represent social media, conversation, or the fading Web 2.0 term in general:
The bubble was called out for being tired in 2007 and things have only worsened since then. I’ve even resorted to the bubble for previous projects, but in my defense, I was a naive grasshopper in early 2007:
Yet, the tired usage of the state – even those combined with word bubbles – continues. A recent logo shows Utah having the same geographic heft as, say, Australia, is a case in point:
So, what to do? Using some kind of laptop silhouette is probably a dead end, as social media is increasingly relevant on other platforms, like mobile devices. What about playing on the idea of communities, of like clusters of people? After some time in photoshop and appending some throwaway text for context I arrived at this:
Yes, there’s a subtle state in there to provide context to the ‘community’ but its not a straight-up outline from Rand-McNally. And one dot stands out to fulfill the idea of the awards – acknowledging those that stand out from the crowd.
After some feedback regarding size, color, and clarity – along with a desire to more closely align with the local Social Media Club chapter, I arrived at this:
Sample USMA Logo - Pass 2
While fulfilling the feedback there are new problems. One, to simplify the state dots to jive with the bubbles it was necessary to strip the gradient shadowing – it was problematic for vectorizing and re-purposing for tasks like silk-screening anyway. But the process makes the spheres flat and two dimensional; they no longer quite resemble people heads. There is also a large amount of clutter, or noise. Whereas before approximately 110 dots didn’t seem to be that big of deal here, even flattened, there’s still a lot going on.
On today’s Vox Pop PowWow, a weekly conference call I have with other creators, it was suggested that cleaning out the bleed through between the dots might help. Another trip to photoshop results in:
So, with all that work and laborious philosophical posturing what will the final verdict be? My guess is that we’ll probably go with:
Why? After trying to avoid the obvious I have to conclude that the reason word bubbles and state outlines are used so often is that they work. What’s more? They work really well. They’re easy to grasp. They have clean lines. They’re easily re-purposed into a variety of different formats.
It’s tremendously easily to over think design. Just look at what happened to Pepsi. What’s hard is stepping outside oneself and scrapping several hours worth of work on a concept that just didn’t quite work.
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