RSpec logo process
derekprior opened this issue · 11 comments
Pulling out the conversation from #6 into its own thread here. I think the logo competition can be run separately from the website redesign effort, though the logo will likely inform the new visual design.
From a process standpoint, once we have a means to collect submissions I think it makes sense to run a "submission phase" where we would solicit submissions from the community for a month or so.
Assuming a manageable number of submissions, we could commence voting for the next 30 days or however long. If there are enough submissions, perhaps multiple rounds of votes are appropriate. We'd also have to decide if each user gets multiple votes to spread around or just a single vote.
Technical challenges might also inform how the contest is run. From that perspective, I was hoping to find an existing community or open source project we could use, but it might make the most sense to build something. I don't think it'd be too hard. Features would be:
- Login via OAuth
- Upload Images
- View and sort images
- Vote on images
- Comment on images (maybe?).
Listing that out, it's hard to believe this doesn't already exist. My first thought was to use dribbble, but I don't think it supports voting. It might make sense if we want a small committee to select from the overall pool, but not for community voting. I'll look around to see if there's anything else out there we could use.
Also worth considering - are there any prizes to be had for this contest? It's an open source project and a community efforts, so the prize of having your logo used is probably most of the reward. Perhaps we could get some companies to donate a few things?
I like the idea of building a simple app for this. I don't know about prizes, but maybe we can print some stickers with the winning design or something of that nature. Shirts or other swag is probably not out of the question for that matter. I don't like the idea of cash prizes, though. Does anyone have more-creative ideas?
The idea of a “logo contest” reeks of phpBB forums circa ‘99. I think the install-base for RSpec is substantial enough that it would be reasonable to do a small fundraiser (~$2,000) and hire a designer. While democracy is great for software, it's generally terrible for design.
I think the emphasise on competition has been a bit strong, the idea was simply to open up a call for "we'd like a logo, would anyone like to donate one" I don't think it needs to be as complicated as having a site, just a blog post talking about why we'd like one, wait some time, blog any submitted logos, we could either then pick one, or let people vote via a google doc.
Eg. here was my attempt
I'm actually inclined to agree with both @JonRowe despite being the person that probably most blew this out of proportion.
Contracting the work like @coreyward suggest will probably get us something beautiful and professional. I too feel like that would give the best results, but I'm just not so sure going to people for money to design a logo for a testing tool is going to go over so well.
I don't think soliciting free logo contributions from a crowd of developers is going to get us the best logo, but we wouldn't have to spend any goodwill by asking for donations. The resulting logo won't be as polished as something like Pry, but it might be a good start? Maybe someone really will knock it out of the park. I think Jon's logo is good (despite all those pending tests...).
I know I have no interest in running a logo fundraiser - that's for sure.
I strongly disagree with the idea that the only way to get a good logo is to pay someone $2k. I don't see a logo contest being the same as a 'design by committee' problem either. I don't see harm in putting out a call and seeing what we get. Can it be worse than the current logo?
@JonRowe 's works for me, but I'd be interested if anyone else wanted to take a crack at it.
What date are you looking at to close submissions?
Close submissions? I don't even know how we're going to take submissions. We're stagnating a bit. Here's a specific proposal. @myronmarston , @dchelimsky and other core team members, what do you think?
- Create a new GitHub issue on an appropriate repo specifically seeking submissions for a logo.
- Announce on Twitter, Blogs, etc
- Assuming there's a manageable number of solutions, find a way to put them up for vote for a period of two weeks.
- Announce the voting process on Twitter, Blogs, etc.
- Announce the winner
@derekprior -- thanks for cc'ing me on this. Somehow I wasn't watching this repo (didn't realize that) so I hadn't even seen this thread until now!
Anyhow, my two cents on some of the things discussed on this thread:
- I dislike the idea of doing a fundraiser and then paying a professional designer to do this. There are professional designers in the ruby/rails community, some of who may want to come up with a design and submit it. I really like the idea of it coming from the community.
- If we did a prize, we could probably reach out to some ruby-focused companies and ask if they'd donate something: e.g. see if PragProg would be willing to donate a book of the winners choice.
- I don't want the competitive aspect to get out of hand, but I do like the idea of giving some kind of prize. Something like a PragProg book feels like a good happy medium to me, and functions as a nice "thank you".
- As for building an app for this: on the surface that sounds like a lot of work to me. I agree it's good to not let it be gamed, though, so if there's nothing existing out there we can use (and I have no idea about that, honestly), and someone wants to take a stab at this, it's probably best. I certainly don't have the time to help, though :(.