Graphic Designers : Prawn needs a logo!
Gregory Brown
I'll be releasing an alpha version of Prawn[0], the fast, nimble PDF
library for Ruby within the next few days. However, despite the
awesome name of this library, I am lacking an awesome logo!
If you have good graphic design skills, think of it as your
contribution to the Ruby Mendicant project[1], and help me fulfill
this highly important dream of having a beautiful Prawn logo.
If you are interested in submitting something, post candidate logos to
http://groups.google.com/group/prawn-ruby before August 1st, 2008. I
am asking that all submissions be under the Creative Commons
Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license[2].
If I decide to use your logo, I'll attribute you wherever it is used
and display a text link to whatever you want (within reason).
Let the Logo Prawntest begin!
-greg
[0] http://github.com/sandal/prawn
[1] http://www.oreillynet.com/ruby/blog/2008/03/the_ruby_mendicant_project.html
[2] http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
Gregory Brown
On Jul 24, 7:06 pm, Gregory Brown <gregory.t.br...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi folks,
>
> I'll be releasing an alpha version of Prawn[0], the fast, nimble PDF
> library for Ruby within the next few days. However, despite the
> awesome name of this library, I am lacking an awesome logo!
contest another couple weeks, until August 15th.
-greg
Gregory Brown
On Aug 4, 3:22 pm, "Samuel Figueroa" <unimatrixzx...@googlemail.com>
wrote:
> too hard I'm a code monkey not a designer but somebody has to start)
first post. Thanks!
thorny_sun
are added as files to this google group):
png:
http://prawn-ruby.googlegroups.com/web/thornys_logo.png?gda=MHR5OkEAAABvQ654V3X3VT6cTSZOtXHf_auvQDU5atobACK8UX7zlWG1qiJ7UbTIup-M2XPURDR3q5WRv2oDaMVGIz4yd6uLNOfskmWVvHzB1T8lPOHyJg&gsc=ZCF9HBYAAAD7ZclEZS87khbfxY6Bjd4Uej8lVbdNv4iBUOdbhJ_ucA
and in case you want to tweak it-- please feel free-- i've provided
all my steps as layers here:
xcf:
http://prawn-ruby.googlegroups.com/web/thornys_logo.xcf?gda=HnMrbUEAAABvQ654V3X3VT6cTSZOtXHf_auvQDU5atobACK8UX7zlWG1qiJ7UbTIup-M2XPURDTJZbZ-PbA0t0i5sWos68hJ5koy8jtfjFBmuoKXCx0UNA&gsc=ZCF9HBYAAAD7ZclEZS87khbfxY6Bjd4Uej8lVbdNv4iBUOdbhJ_ucA
probably shoulda asked this first:
what size logo are you looking for and do you need it to scale
nicely-- i.e. SVG? does it need to say prawn in there some where? or
does it need to not say prawn? any other requirements? alpha desired/
not-desired?
enjoy,
thorny_sun
Gregory Brown
>
> my lame 2cents: (having a hard time attaching for some reason so they
> are added as files to this google group):
>
> png:
> http://prawn-ruby.googlegroups.com/web/thornys_logo.png?gda=MHR5OkEAAABvQ654V3X3VT6cTSZOtXHf_auvQDU5atobACK8UX7zlWG1qiJ7UbTIup-M2XPURDR3q5WRv2oDaMVGIz4yd6uLNOfskmWVvHzB1T8lPOHyJg&gsc=ZCF9HBYAAAD7ZclEZS87khbfxY6Bjd4Uej8lVbdNv4iBUOdbhJ_ucA
Neat!
> probably shoulda asked this first:
> what size logo are you looking for and do you need it to scale
> nicely-- i.e. SVG? does it need to say prawn in there some where? or
> does it need to not say prawn? any other requirements? alpha desired/
> not-desired?
All of these questions would need to be answered by someone with a
much better feel for visual identity than me, and these folks could
then fix the website by forking it. (It's www/ in the sandal/prawn
repos)
I'd say arbitrary scaling would be nice, if not possible, please
provide several sizes.
Prawn doesn't necessarily need to be said in it, but if it doesn't
have a picture of a Prawn, you'll need to come up with something
pretty expressive.
Transparency is probably important, but not critical.
Mikel
Good work so far on Prawn.
On the logo front, a couple of questions.
First, why 'prawn' ? Give us some thoughts on how you chose this, is
it because it was funny, is it a pun on something? Are you trying to
make a light hearted library? Or does a prawn represent something?
That would help.
Mikel
Gregory Brown
Well I guess I just think the name is cool. In high school, we had a
very shoddy, very unofficial ultimate frisbee team called the "Death
Prawns" and that became somewhat of a meme among my (rather strange)
circle of friends and would show up in random places in the school.
The real reason this library is called Prawn instead of PDF something
something, or even PDF::Writer 2.0 is to distinguish it clearly from
other PDF solutions. My long term dream is to retire PDF::Writer, and
change the Prawn namespace to PDF, giving PDF::Document. I'd also
like to see things like PDF::Reader join under the same project
(though not necessarily the same gem or repository, of course). In
the end, Prawn will be generation side of the "Ruby PDF project" if I
have my way.
For now, the goal is just to have something memorable, edgy, and maybe
a bit light-hearted. PDF is a pretty dull concept when you get down
to it. Naming the library Prawn is my way of hoping it will attract
less-than dull people during its development. So far, that's been a
smashing success. :)
-greg
mdaines
http://prawn-ruby.googlegroups.com/web/mdaines-prawn-logo.gif
No "prawn" text, but I was also thinking of doing some lettering? For
convenience, this a gif rather than the vector version, that can be
provided if need be.
Also -- it'd be neat to have a macro for drawing the prawn logo within
a document, like with TeX. (j/k)
-- Michael
Gregory Brown
>
> So, I've got a logo --
>
> http://prawn-ruby.googlegroups.com/web/mdaines-prawn-logo.gif
>
> No "prawn" text, but I was also thinking of doing some lettering? For
> convenience, this a gif rather than the vector version, that can be
> provided if need be.
I really like this one. I'd like the logo to either be a little silly
or badass.
The other logos submitted were a bit of the latter, but this cartoony
one makes me smile :)
If you want to play around with lettering, go ahead. Also, please
provide a vector form so others can tweak.
> Also -- it'd be neat to have a macro for drawing the prawn logo within
> a document, like with TeX. (j/k)
So long as it's undocumented... ;)
-greg
mdaines
http://prawn-ruby.googlegroups.com/web/mdaines-prawn-lettering.gif
I'm kind of going for silly and badass at the same time here, like it
should hopefully kind of remind you of something you might carve into
your desk in high school (to connect w/ your story about the name,
Greg). Also, I wanted to include that Prawn is this thing you use to
construct PDFs, so the letters aren't fully 'constructed' themselves.
The vector files I was working with are now in the "files" section on
the google groups site. (They're Illustrator files -- why they are
both 1MB, I don't understand. Perhaps I can upload them as SVG or some
other format people would like?)
-- Michael
Gregory Brown
SVG files are the most friendly, I feel.
maso
On Aug 5, 3:27 pm, "Samuel Figueroa" <unimatrixzx...@googlemail.com>
wrote:
> would like to tweak what I have provided here are the files in vector
> formats.
>
> 1637KDownload
>
> prawn_photoshop.psd
> 293KDownload
>
> prawn_vec_designer.zip
> 252KDownload
Gregory Brown
On Aug 8, 12:39 am, maso <mason.rich...@gmail.com> wrote:
> added prawn.svg to files area, based on Samuel's prawn
Anyway, I really love this one but I feel like we'll probably get sued
if we use elements of the adobe logo. Despite the fact that it would
give our library tons of traffic, I don't know if we want to go down
that road. :)
-greg
Gregory Brown
to see the logo with either another background scheme or no background
at all.
-greg
maso
> On Aug 8, 12:50 am, Gregory Brown <gregory.t.br...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On Aug 8, 12:39 am, maso <mason.rich...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > added prawn.svg to files area, based on Samuel's prawn
>
> > I think that was mdaines' Prawn. :)
>
> > Anyway, I really love this one but I feel like we'll probably get sued
> > if we use elements of the adobe logo. Despite the fact that it would
> > give our library tons of traffic, I don't know if we want to go down
> > that road. :)
>
> BTW, I like the changes you made to the Prawn itself, so it'd be cool
> to see the logo with either another background scheme or no background
> at all.
>
> -greg
Gregory Brown
On Aug 8, 3:25 am, maso <mason.rich...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > BTW, I like the changes you made to the Prawn itself, so it'd be cool
> > to see the logo with either another background scheme or no background
> > at all.
>
> added a new one that might not have the lawyers at your door
choose one for the 'official' Prawn logo and another for my blog at
blog.majesticseacreature.com (crediting author(s) in both places of
course :)
And I think I'll be sure to include an example with the source that
renders all the submitted logos as embedded PNGS.
-greg
prawn_fan
Lots more I'd like to do with this, but that will have to wait until
the Beta logo contest I suppose. For one thing I'd to experiment with
is incorporating some type of icon that is reminiscent of the PDF
branding, without infringing on the brand itself. For now I went with
a "ruby red" document under the prawn. Anyway, comments are welcome.
<img src="http://161.58.210.5/prawn_logo.jpg" width="400" height="246"
border="0" />
Gregory Brown
>
> I recall seeing an August 15 deadline for the latest logo submission.
> Lots more I'd like to do with this, but that will have to wait until
> the Beta logo contest I suppose. For one thing I'd to experiment with
> is incorporating some type of icon that is reminiscent of the PDF
> branding, without infringing on the brand itself. For now I went with
> a "ruby red" document under the prawn. Anyway, comments are welcome.
http://161.58.210.5/prawn_logo.jpg
This is the same thing that happened with the Ruport logo... right
when I made my decision of what I liked... someone had to come along
and make me doubt myself.
I actually selected maso's logo and updated the webpage to reflect
that. I selected Michael Daines' logo for my blog.
I forgot to specify whether I meant before the 15th or by the end of
the 15th, but I didn't expect to see last minute entries....
Anyway, I like this logo a lot, I'm curious what others think. I
would need someone to help me re-design the web page to incorporate
it, because right now, maso's was the best fit. If we could do that,
maybe we could use this logo instead.
-greg
--
Technical Blaag at: http://blog.majesticseacreature.com | Non-tech
stuff at: http://metametta.blogspot.com
prawn_fan
I was inspired by your dedication to the Prawn project, so I decided
to spend as much time as possible on the logo, up until the last
minute (yes, I did in fact draw the prawn from scratch!).
Ah, you must have just updated the site with maso's logo because I
could have sworn it was not there a few hours ago.
I agree that maso's logo fits the current site well.
If you wanted to go with my logo, I also agree there would need to be
a re-design of the current site, or I would need to experiment with
other color treatments that work better with the existing color scheme
of the site. Perhaps then it's best to keep my logo in the running for
the next major release? I'd be interested in investing more time to
the effort either way.
Maybe we can also get a group collaboration started for the overall,
ongoing design/branding of Prawn? Michael, maso?
Gregory Brown
>
> Oops... sorry to throw a monkey wrench into the process :)
>
> I was inspired by your dedication to the Prawn project, so I decided
> to spend as much time as possible on the logo, up until the last
> minute (yes, I did in fact draw the prawn from scratch!).
>
> Ah, you must have just updated the site with maso's logo because I
> could have sworn it was not there a few hours ago.
Yeah, I just finished updating the webpage when I read your email :-/
> I agree that maso's logo fits the current site well.
>
> If you wanted to go with my logo, I also agree there would need to be
> a re-design of the current site, or I would need to experiment with
> other color treatments that work better with the existing color scheme
> of the site. Perhaps then it's best to keep my logo in the running for
> the next major release? I'd be interested in investing more time to
> the effort either way.
These things can be a bit fluid before 1.0 but I don't want to change
them more than a few times, that'll create confusion.
I think I'll go with maso's logo for now, and consider changing things
at two pivotal points:
1) The end of Ruby Mendicant on September 16th
2) Prawn's 1.0 release, probably before the end of the year. (I hope
before RubyConf, even)
So things will be as they are until September 16th, when we can
possibly re-think things again.
Of course, plenty of discussion and ideas can go on between now and then.
> Maybe we can also get a group collaboration started for the overall,
> ongoing design/branding of Prawn? Michael, maso?
If folks want to start up a Prawn Identity collaboration, I'd be happy
with that. The website is in the git repository, so making changes is
simple.
I have to play gatekeeper on this stuff, but generally, I'm willing to
yield to others with better style sense than me so long as the spirit
of the project is maintained.
prawn_fan
> them more than a few times, that'll create confusion.
> I think I'll go with maso's logo for now, and consider changing things
> at two pivotal points:
>
> 1) The end of Ruby Mendicant on September 16th
> 2) Prawn's 1.0 release, probably before the end of the year. (I hope
> before RubyConf, even)
>
> So things will be as they are until September 16th, when we can
> possibly re-think things again.
> Of course, plenty of discussion and ideas can go on between now and then.
> > Maybe we can also get a group collaboration started for the overall,
> > ongoing design/branding of Prawn? Michael, maso?
>
> If folks want to start up a Prawn Identity collaboration, I'd be happy
> with that. The website is in the git repository, so making changes is
> simple.
> I have to play gatekeeper on this stuff, but generally, I'm willing to
> yield to others with better style sense than me so long as the spirit
> of the project is maintained.