Pylons Logo Design
James Gardner
Ben and I have started thinking again about what really makes Pylons
different from other web frameworks and how we can best highlight those
differences in the Pylons marketing to help attract people to the
community and see Pylons gain further recognition and adoption.
As part of the process we'd like to hire a professional designer to
create a new and striking logo for Pylons but we don't know of anyone
suitable ourselves so I'd like to send out a challenge: Does anyone on
the list know a top notch logo designer who they can recommend and who
might be interested in helping us design a fresh Pylons logo?
Any recommendations will be much appreciated and after we've discussed
the options here on the list we'll commission the person whose work best
reflects Pylons.
Cheers,
James
Christoph Haas
I'm not sure if you followed the discussion we had on IRC about logos.
Yannick Gingras pointed out that http://www.everaldo.com/ is supporting
open-source projects. Might be worth a try. The artwork doesn't look
ugly.
Christoph
James Gardner
I didn't see the discussion actually but I've just had a look at the
logs. Actually I like the style of the everaldo icons and logos, do you
know if they are very costly?
Cheers,
James
Christoph Haas
> I didn't see the discussion actually but I've just had a look at the
> logs. Actually I like the style of the everaldo icons and logos, do you
> know if they are very costly?
From IRC (Yannick is not subscribed here):
12:57 < YGingras> Signum: but for the record, they can cost 1k$ but they do
support free software. The best think to do is to ask them
what they are willing to do within your budget
12:59 < YGingras> Signum: you can use the contact form on
http://www.yellowicon.com/
13:01 < YGingras> Signum: but I have other contacts from designers who made
graphics for Ubuntu that will charge much less if price is an
issue
Consider joining us at #pylons on irc.freenode.net. :)
Cheers
Christoph
Dan
I think you should consider changing domain names. I don't think the
name Pylons is bad, just combined with the domain pylonshq.com it just
doesn't stick. I'd suggest using pylonsframework.org for the following
reasons:
.org - Eludes to an open source/non-profit. If Pylons is open
source/non-profit I think its a feature that you should mention to your
visitors... I didn't see licensing information anywhere on the homepage?
pylonsframework - Eludes to Pylons being a framework right in the
domain. I'd click on a URL for pylonsframework.org before pylonshq.com.
In general, the things that brought me to Pylons was the 1) speed and
libraries of Python and 2) MVC development. Both are not even mentioned
on the homepage. It should be in the first paragraph. WSGI seems
important, even if I didn't know why, but not a reason I'd choose Pylons
over another framework. Its not something that I would say in the first
paragraph. I'd say that most people care about two things: speed (both
development time and application performance) and stability. These two
key points should be the focus of the introduction, to grab the visitors
attention. I do think Pylons is flexible, which can be a feature, but
it can also be a hindrance... especially for newbies. Thats tricky.
I hate to mention the word, but 'screencasts' is almost a standard. It
wouldn't hurt if someone could put one together.
I hope that I'm not coming off as being overly critical. Pylons is a
great framework. Keep up the good work!
Antonio Beamud Montero
> This is all highly opinionated, but here are some of my suggestions.
>
> I think you should consider changing domain names. I don't think the
> name Pylons is bad, just combined with the domain pylonshq.com it just
> doesn't stick. I'd suggest using pylonsframework.org for the following
> reasons:
>
> .org - Eludes to an open source/non-profit. If Pylons is open
> source/non-profit I think its a feature that you should mention to your
> visitors... I didn't see licensing information anywhere on the homepage?
+1
> pylonsframework - Eludes to Pylons being a framework right in the
> domain. I'd click on a URL for pylonsframework.org before pylonshq.com.
+1
> In general, the things that brought me to Pylons was the 1) speed and
> libraries of Python and 2) MVC development. Both are not even mentioned
> on the homepage. It should be in the first paragraph. WSGI seems
> important, even if I didn't know why, but not a reason I'd choose Pylons
> over another framework. Its not something that I would say in the first
> paragraph. I'd say that most people care about two things: speed (both
> development time and application performance) and stability. These two
> key points should be the focus of the introduction, to grab the visitors
> attention. I do think Pylons is flexible, which can be a feature, but
> it can also be a hindrance... especially for newbies. Thats tricky.
Things to mention:
- In the python way.
- Easy and flexible
- WSGI
> I hate to mention the word, but 'screencasts' is almost a standard. It
> wouldn't hurt if someone could put one together.
+1
My two euro cents ;)
Greetings
Ben Bangert
> I think you should consider changing domain names. I don't think the
> name Pylons is bad, just combined with the domain pylonshq.com it just
> doesn't stick. I'd suggest using pylonsframework.org for the
> following
> reasons:
>
> .org - Eludes to an open source/non-profit. If Pylons is open
> source/non-profit I think its a feature that you should mention to
> your
> visitors... I didn't see licensing information anywhere on the
> homepage?
>
> pylonsframework - Eludes to Pylons being a framework right in the
> domain. I'd click on a URL for pylonsframework.org before
> pylonshq.com.
I think once we add some additional sitemap data, so that Google
automatically displays the full description of our site (Pylons
Framework....) the domain name won't matter much. At this point it
would prolly be very bad to change domain names, since we could end
up losing our top Google search result spot for "Pylons" which we
currently have.
> I hate to mention the word, but 'screencasts' is almost a
> standard. It
> wouldn't hurt if someone could put one together.
They're coming, and Jon R. actually has some together. Part of the
new site redesign would highlight these and bring news of updates to
a more visible front.
But right now... we need a good logo. Something people would be happy
to have on a t-shirt even. :)
Cheers,
Ben
Dan
Ben Bangert wrote:
On Jun 1, 2007, at 7:21 AM, Dan wrote:I think you should consider changing domain names. I don't think the name Pylons is bad, just combined with the domain pylonshq.com it just doesn't stick. I'd suggest using pylonsframework.org for the following reasons: .org - Eludes to an open source/non-profit. If Pylons is open source/non-profit I think its a feature that you should mention to your visitors... I didn't see licensing information anywhere on the homepage? pylonsframework - Eludes to Pylons being a framework right in the domain. I'd click on a URL for pylonsframework.org before pylonshq.com.I think once we add some additional sitemap data, so that Google automatically displays the full description of our site (Pylons Framework....) the domain name won't matter much. At this point it would prolly be very bad to change domain names, since we could end up losing our top Google search result spot for "Pylons" which we currently have.
http://pylonshq.com ?
or
http://pylonsframework.org ?
Lets quickly take a closer look:
pylonshq.com
- '.com' implies a commercial 'for profit' company
- 'pylons' could be either a structure for electrical lines or an orange cone... less than 1% of the world population is going to get the 'py' for python
- 'hq' could be short for headquarters for some people, but that's just guessing because its not mentioned on the homepage
pylonsframework.org
- '.org' implies a non-profit organization commonly associated with open source software... definitely adds context
- 'pylons' still means nothing to 90% of people, but have potential
- 'framework' now that means something to your target audience... web developers! definitely adds context
Google places high emphasis on popularity (link backs, what people click on after getting search results) and the competition for the word 'pylons' isn't exactly going to be hard to beat... ever. Google is a pretty smart tool. It will figure out that 95% of people searching for 'pylons' will want the web framework and you'll still be on the top of the rankings. Now the real trick is to get your Pylons to the top of a Google 'framework' search... adding framework to your domain should help placing you higher in that search, but not a replacement for getting people to actually click on it.
Thanks for listening.
By the way, I think the logo should be something with an orange cone... because its simple.
Christoph Haas
> This is all highly opinionated, but here are some of my suggestions.
>
> I think you should consider changing domain names. I don't think the
> name Pylons is bad, just combined with the domain pylonshq.com it just
> doesn't stick. I'd suggest using pylonsframework.org for the following
> reasons:
>
> .org - Eludes to an open source/non-profit. If Pylons is open
> source/non-profit I think its a feature that you should mention to your
> visitors... I didn't see licensing information anywhere on the homepage?
>
> pylonsframework - Eludes to Pylons being a framework right in the
> domain. I'd click on a URL for pylonsframework.org before pylonshq.com.
I second every single word of the above statement. pylonshq.com is
really a weird URL. IMHO "djangoproject.com" suffers from similar
problems like "pylonshq.com". They are .com(mercial) and they are a
project instead of a creator of some software. Everything with "project"
sounds like new-age jargon for a music band.
pylonsproject.org is it. Or maybe pylons-framework.org.
> In general, the things that brought me to Pylons was the 1) speed and
> libraries of Python and 2) MVC development. Both are not even mentioned
> on the homepage. It should be in the first paragraph. WSGI seems
> important, even if I didn't know why, but not a reason I'd choose Pylons
> over another framework.
It has taken a while until I understood the meaning of it. And many web
developer will hardly care about WSGI. Writting middleware is not a job
for a coffee break unless it's your daily business.
> Its not something that I would say in the first
> paragraph. I'd say that most people care about two things: speed (both
> development time and application performance) and stability. These two
> key points should be the focus of the introduction, to grab the visitors
> attention.
Hmmm, speed and stability. I'd rather outline fun and
production-savvyness. "paster shell" is fun. "--reload" is fun. The
online debugger is fun. And its community - small but great.
> I do think Pylons is flexible, which can be a feature, but
> it can also be a hindrance... especially for newbies. Thats tricky.
It's very likely not a feature for newbies. I was scared by it. And
while I write some more documentation on Pylons I'm increasingly scared
the more I see. Well, soon I'll be a guru perhaps and Ben et al will
come out with a new version that makes my knowledge deprecated.
> I hate to mention the word, but 'screencasts' is almost a standard. It
> wouldn't hurt if someone could put one together.
On the Python wiki there are >30 different web frameworks. Even if
someone decides that among the 5 frameworks is Pylons then the web site
needs to give a lot of information in very little time highlighting the
fun features. A screencast would be great (30 minutes are far too much -
perhaps 5-10 minutes). I'd even do it myself but I'm unsure whether my
spoken english will probably rather drive people away. :)
Christoph
Mike Orr
> I think you should consider changing domain names. I don't think the
> name Pylons is bad, just combined with the domain pylonshq.com it just
> doesn't stick. I'd suggest using pylonsframework.org for the following
> reasons:
>
> .org - Eludes to an open source/non-profit. If Pylons is open
> source/non-profit I think its a feature that you should mention to your
> visitors... I didn't see licensing information anywhere on the homepage?
>
> pylonsframework - Eludes to Pylons being a framework right in the
> domain. I'd click on a URL for pylonsframework.org before pylonshq.com.
I like PylonsHQ. What we should do is put "Pylons Headquarters" at
the top of the site as a segue from the domain name to the site.
Pylonshq is short and easy to type. I just hate compound words as
domain names: footemplate, fooframework, fooinc. pylons-framework.org
is much better if we need that "framework" word. But how many people
see a link with the raw URL in it, with nothing else around it? Not
the people we're marketing to. Just deep links to mailing-list
messages and the like.
Pylonshq.org is available. Why don't we snap it up and make it an
alias. Then we'll have the ability to make it the primary site later.
Would we really lose our Google ranking if we made .com a redirect to
.org? Lots of sites have both.
> In general, the things that brought me to Pylons was the 1) speed and
> libraries of Python and 2) MVC development. Both are not even mentioned
> on the homepage. It should be in the first paragraph. WSGI seems
> important, even if I didn't know why, but not a reason I'd choose Pylons
> over another framework. Its not something that I would say in the first
> paragraph. I'd say that most people care about two things: speed (both
> development time and application performance) and stability. These two
> key points should be the focus of the introduction, to grab the visitors
> attention. I do think Pylons is flexible, which can be a feature, but
> it can also be a hindrance... especially for newbies. Thats tricky.
The introduction can be improved, certainly. I wasn't here when
Pylons was started or the website was created, but my sense is that
Pylons has evolved since then. Its first adherents were looking for
*any* framework that was Paste-ified (and thus WSGI-ified) from the
ground up, and Pylons was it. Now we're getting more Pythoneers who
want "something more modular than Turbogears", non-Pythoneers who want
"something like Rails", newbies who want "something easy to code,
scalable, performant, and stable". The trick is to address all these
audiences. If we focus totally on newbies, that leaves everybody else
cold. Plus we need to focus on building 1.0 right now, not on
bringing in hordes of newbies Because...
- we need all hands on deck
- we don't have the resources to train a huge influx of newbies.
after we get 1.0 and the documentation finished, then we'll be in a
better position
- upcoming changes may require changes in applications or cause a
period of instability. Not what newbies are thrilled about.
- other frameworks frankly do a better job of meeting newbie's
needs. Why compete with them in a half-assed way?
I'm not saying don't make the site newbie-friendly. I'm just saying
let's not neglect the other audiences.
You're right that WSGI is no longer important enough to fill 1/3 of
the introduction. WSGI has become an infrastructure piece that all
frameworks should support or else. Nevertheless, Pylons' use of WSGI
as the core rather than an add-on is worth noting, as well as the ease
of of plugging multiple applications into the same URL space via Paste
or within a Pylons controller should be noted.
"Pylons combines the very best ideas from the worlds of Ruby, Python
and Perl, providing a structured but extremely flexible Python web
framework. It's also one of the first projects to leverage the
emerging WSGI standard, which allows extensive re-use and flexibility
— but only if you need it. Out of the box, Pylons aims to make web
development fast, flexible and easy."
The first and last sentences are vague. TurboGears uses hyperlinks to
substantiate each claim. Mako gives you many of its features in a
nutshell. SQLAlchemy has a table of features and elaborations, and a
link to testimonials. Cheetah does the same, tells where it is being
used ("to generate C++ code, Java, sql, form emails, and even Python
code"), and has a couple quotes on the home page.
> I hate to mention the word, but 'screencasts' is almost a standard. It
> wouldn't hurt if someone could put one together.
True, they help and persuade new users a lot.
Regarding the logo, I'm more concerned about the theme than the
details. What guidelines are we going to give the designer? Just
"make a logo"? Or "make a logo containing an electrical tower"? It's
really up to us to choose our mascot, not leave it to the logo
designer, otherwise he may go off totallyon a tangent. Though it's
worth asking him if he has some different ideas. I like the current
yin-yang snakes in the Python logo but I didn't like some of the
previous logos and refused to wear T-shirts that had them. Quixote
has some windmill logos but what's so "Quixote" about them?
--
Mike Orr <slugg...@gmail.com>
Ben Bangert
> I like PylonsHQ. What we should do is put "Pylons Headquarters" at
> the top of the site as a segue from the domain name to the site.
> Pylonshq is short and easy to type. I just hate compound words as
> domain names: footemplate, fooframework, fooinc. pylons-framework.org
> is much better if we need that "framework" word. But how many people
> see a link with the raw URL in it, with nothing else around it? Not
> the people we're marketing to. Just deep links to mailing-list
> messages and the like.
>
> Pylonshq.org is available. Why don't we snap it up and make it an
> alias. Then we'll have the ability to make it the primary site later.
> Would we really lose our Google ranking if we made .com a redirect to
> .org? Lots of sites have both.
Done, I'll setup the redirect tonight. I like the idea of having
Headquarters put in the title, since that is in the URL and was our
original intention. I'm not a fan of putting 'framework' in the
domain, partly because I'm not sure that phrase will always apply or
even really applies right now.
> The introduction can be improved, certainly. I wasn't here when
> Pylons was started or the website was created, but my sense is that
> Pylons has evolved since then. Its first adherents were looking for
> *any* framework that was Paste-ified (and thus WSGI-ified) from the
> ground up, and Pylons was it. Now we're getting more Pythoneers who
> want "something more modular than Turbogears", non-Pythoneers who want
> "something like Rails", newbies who want "something easy to code,
> scalable, performant, and stable". The trick is to address all these
> audiences. If we focus totally on newbies, that leaves everybody else
> cold. Plus we need to focus on building 1.0 right now, not on
> bringing in hordes of newbies Because...
We definitely need new copy for the website introduction and
overview. Any volunteers?
> - we need all hands on deck
> - we don't have the resources to train a huge influx of newbies.
> after we get 1.0 and the documentation finished, then we'll be in a
> better position
> - upcoming changes may require changes in applications or cause a
> period of instability. Not what newbies are thrilled about.
> - other frameworks frankly do a better job of meeting newbie's
> needs. Why compete with them in a half-assed way?
I definitely agree.
> You're right that WSGI is no longer important enough to fill 1/3 of
> the introduction. WSGI has become an infrastructure piece that all
> frameworks should support or else. Nevertheless, Pylons' use of WSGI
> as the core rather than an add-on is worth noting, as well as the ease
> of of plugging multiple applications into the same URL space via Paste
> or within a Pylons controller should be noted.
I think its important in that its WSGI through-out the core, but yes,
it is becoming more common so it could be considered more of a
documentation thing rather than a 'core concept for the description'
type thing.
> The first and last sentences are vague. TurboGears uses hyperlinks to
> substantiate each claim. Mako gives you many of its features in a
> nutshell. SQLAlchemy has a table of features and elaborations, and a
> link to testimonials. Cheetah does the same, tells where it is being
> used ("to generate C++ code, Java, sql, form emails, and even Python
> code"), and has a couple quotes on the home page.
>
> Regarding the logo, I'm more concerned about the theme than the
> details. What guidelines are we going to give the designer? Just
> "make a logo"? Or "make a logo containing an electrical tower"? It's
> really up to us to choose our mascot, not leave it to the logo
> designer, otherwise he may go off totallyon a tangent. Though it's
> worth asking him if he has some different ideas. I like the current
> yin-yang snakes in the Python logo but I didn't like some of the
> previous logos and refused to wear T-shirts that had them. Quixote
> has some windmill logos but what's so "Quixote" about them?
The current theme that I plan on giving the designer:
Imagine two pylons some ways apart, with a hand and part of arm
reaching up to hold onto the line between them. It'd be zoomed in on
the hand holding the power line, with some - \ | / - above it to show
it being energized. Something like that perhaps, with only some of
the Pylon in view. The hand shouldn't be realistic and prolly some
vague shape of a hand.
Generally, we're aiming to not have such a 'heavy' feel to the
website as well, since the thick dark colors really make it feel
weighted down. Something where it's easier to highlight news and
"new" stuff going on, new screencasts, etc.
Cheers,
Ben
Christoph Haas
> On Jun 1, 2007, at 11:11 AM, Mike Orr wrote:
> > The introduction can be improved, certainly. I wasn't here when
> > Pylons was started or the website was created, but my sense is that
> > Pylons has evolved since then. Its first adherents were looking for
> > *any* framework that was Paste-ified (and thus WSGI-ified) from the
> > ground up, and Pylons was it. Now we're getting more Pythoneers who
> > want "something more modular than Turbogears", non-Pythoneers who want
> > "something like Rails", newbies who want "something easy to code,
> > scalable, performant, and stable". The trick is to address all these
> > audiences. If we focus totally on newbies, that leaves everybody else
> > cold. Plus we need to focus on building 1.0 right now, not on
> > bringing in hordes of newbies Because...
>
> We definitely need new copy for the website introduction and
> overview. Any volunteers?
I'm currently extending my "concepts of pylons" article into a longer
(actually it looks like it's getting longer than I expected)
introduction. It's still beta but I tried to sum up the advantages and
fun features about Pylons in
http://workaround.org/pylons/beginning-pylons.html#what-makes-pylons-stand-out-from-other-frameworks
Perhaps some of these points should be mentioned in the introductory
paragraph on the hq site. At least those are the points that make using
Pylons fun for me.
Christoph
Mike Orr
>
> On Fri, Jun 01, 2007 at 03:15:19PM -0700, Ben Bangert wrote:
> > On Jun 1, 2007, at 11:11 AM, Mike Orr wrote:
> > > The introduction can be improved, certainly. I wasn't here when
> > > Pylons was started or the website was created, but my sense is that
> > > Pylons has evolved since then. Its first adherents were looking for
> > > *any* framework that was Paste-ified (and thus WSGI-ified) from the
> > > ground up, and Pylons was it. Now we're getting more Pythoneers who
> > > want "something more modular than Turbogears", non-Pythoneers who want
> > > "something like Rails", newbies who want "something easy to code,
> > > scalable, performant, and stable". The trick is to address all these
> > > audiences. If we focus totally on newbies, that leaves everybody else
> > > cold. Plus we need to focus on building 1.0 right now, not on
> > > bringing in hordes of newbies Because...
> >
> > We definitely need new copy for the website introduction and
> > overview. Any volunteers?
>
> I'm currently extending my "concepts of pylons" article into a longer
> (actually it looks like it's getting longer than I expected)
> introduction. It's still beta but I tried to sum up the advantages and
> fun features about Pylons in
> http://workaround.org/pylons/beginning-pylons.html#what-makes-pylons-stand-out-from-other-frameworks
This is excellent! Especially starting with the interactive debugger
and "paster shell". And it does a good job of tooting WSGI without
going overboard.
I would put this on, add some quotes from users and links to success
cases, and the necessary download links, you'd have a home page.
PS. The link to my article has a trailing ")".
--
Mike Orr <slugg...@gmail.com>
wongobongo
identities". They are pretty important, companies spend a fortune on
them and there are a whole bunch of different methodologies used to
get a 'good' identity. That being said, it really is more of an art
and it would be difficult to get a group of designers to agree on the
best approach to logo discovery.
This video of Paula Scher may be illuminating
http://www.hillmancurtis.com/hc_web/film_video/source/scher.php
If your designer doesn't give you a pad-talk like Paula, you're
getting short changed. <joke />
For the logos that I've helped create, I focused on the way it was
intended to be used. In business communication, you want the logo to
be recognizable despite being presented in different ways. For
example, on a fax, the logo should be recognizable, so it should be
created using a lot of positive and negative space with few gradients
because gradients look like crap on faxes. This requirement will limit
the number of colours the designer can use and in my experience, the
fewer colours the better. If you will never be faxed, this will be
less important.
You generally want the logo to be able to drop to 16x16 or 32x32
pixels and still be recognizable if it is to be used on software. Once
again too much detail and you will run into problems. A fist with two
pylons and lines will shrink to a grey blob. There is a designer trick
where you can use a subset of your logo for the favicon, but the
portion needs to be pretty strong. For example, if your logo is a
green tree with one red leaf then you can put the one red leaf in the
favicon and visitors will 'get it' that your brand is the one red
leaf. You don't have to show the tree. You need a clever designer to
do this; the $150 per logo guys will not give you this kind of work.
The problem your designer will run into is the fact the electrical
pylons are not the most exciting thing in the world and you'll want
something exciting. They're not conventionally beautiful; sonnets are
not written about pylons. Pylons are quite mundane, they look
different in different countries, they buzz if you get too close to
them and visually they are painfully reticulated.
All this and it's got to look good enough to go on a shirt and have
someone cough up money for it.
This blog has some good before after images of logos from major
companies.
http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/
I'd stay away from swooshes - done to death.
K
On Jun 1, 3:15 pm, Ben Bangert <b...@groovie.org> wrote:
> On Jun 1, 2007, at 11:11 AM, Mike Orr wrote:
>
>
> > Regarding the logo, I'm more concerned about the theme than the
> > details. What guidelines are we going to give the designer? Just
> > "make a logo"? Or "make a logo containing an electrical tower"? It's
> > really up to us to choose our mascot, not leave it to the logo
> > designer, otherwise he may go off totallyon a tangent. Though it's
> > worth asking him if he has some different ideas. I like the current
> > yin-yang snakes in the Python logo but I didn't like some of the
> > previous logos and refused to wear T-shirts that had them. Quixote
> > has some windmill logos but what's so "Quixote" about them?
>
>
> Cheers,
> Ben
Mike Orr
beam (girder), so as a building block it made sense. But
dictionary.com says it means a tower. Here are all the definitions,
which include some visual ideas we haven't tried. Ancient Egyptian
theme, anyone?
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pylon
1. a marking post or tower for guiding aviators, frequently used in races.
2. a relatively tall structure at the side of a gate, bridge, or
avenue, marking an entrance or approach.
3. a monumental tower forming the entrance to an ancient Egyptian
temple, consisting either of a pair of tall quadrilateral masonry
masses with sloping sides and a doorway between them or of one such
mass pierced with a doorway.
4. a steel tower or mast carrying high-tension lines, telephone wires,
or other cables and lines.
5. Aeronautics. a finlike device used to attach engines, auxiliary
fuel tanks, bombs, etc., to an aircraft wing or fuselage.
[Origin: 1840–50; < Gk pyln gateway, gate tower]
--
Mike Orr <slugg...@gmail.com>
Ben Bangert
> Why is it called Pylons anyway? I thought a pylon was a large metal
> beam (girder), so as a building block it made sense. But
> dictionary.com says it means a tower. Here are all the definitions,
> which include some visual ideas we haven't tried. Ancient Egyptian
> theme, anyone?
I'm open to taking a look at an Egyptian theme, especially if it
results in a cooler logo. :)
- Ben
Edin Salkovic
I'm looking at the homepage right now with Firefox, and IMHO the
indentation of the first line in the "pullquote" looks really ugly.
Pylons is a lightweight web framework
emphasizing flexibility and rapid development. |Download!|
Maybe the download button should be put in there.
|Download!|Pylons is a lightweight web framework
emphasizing flexibility and rapid development.
Best,
Edin
James Gardner
Dan wrote:
> I think you should consider changing domain names. I don't think the
> name Pylons is bad, just combined with the domain pylonshq.com it just
> doesn't stick. I'd suggest using pylonsframework.org for the following
> reasons:
>
> .org - Eludes to an open source/non-profit. If Pylons is open
> source/non-profit I think its a feature that you should mention to your
> visitors... I didn't see licensing information anywhere on the homepage?
>
> pylonsframework - Eludes to Pylons being a framework right in the
> domain. I'd click on a URL for pylonsframework.org before pylonshq.com.
My view is that we shouldn't change domain names unless we can get
pylons.org or pylons.com, both of which I will continue to investigate.
There is no point in changing domains because it will simply cause
problems with existing links. Even though Ben has registered
pylonshq.org I don't think we should change for this same reason.
Also I know tech people like .org but lots of business people think .org
is what you get when you can't get .com. I know it is ridiculous but I
have an easier time selling Pylons as a attentional product when it is
hosted a .com address compared with a .org so I'm keen to keep it that
way if possible.
I agree with Ben that we should add some sitemap data and mention
Headquarters somewhere, people often ask what the HQ stands for.
> In general, the things that brought me to Pylons was the 1) speed and
> libraries of Python and 2) MVC development. Both are not even mentioned
> on the homepage. It should be in the first paragraph. WSGI seems
> important, even if I didn't know why, but not a reason I'd choose Pylons
> over another framework. Its not something that I would say in the first
> paragraph. I'd say that most people care about two things: speed (both
> development time and application performance) and stability. These two
> key points should be the focus of the introduction, to grab the visitors
> attention. I do think Pylons is flexible, which can be a feature, but
> it can also be a hindrance... especially for newbies. Thats tricky.
>
> I hate to mention the word, but 'screencasts' is almost a standard. It
> wouldn't hurt if someone could put one together.
>
> I hope that I'm not coming off as being overly critical. Pylons is a
> great framework. Keep up the good work!
Really appreciate the comments, very helpful!
Just thinking about the possibility of an Egyptian theme for the logo
but temple Pylons don't look visually too exciting either. I'm open to
the idea of changing the name of the project actually but only if people
have very compelling alternatives and the whole community gets totally
behind the idea.
By the way I've added some notes about the discussion to this page:
http://docs.pythonweb.org/display/pylonscommunity/Pylons+Logo
If anyone wants to get started on some sample text for any of the
website pages feel free to create a page off the one above and make a
start! We can always move pages around to a more appropriate location
later if necessary.
Cheers,
James
Tobias Sargeant
> [Origin: 1840-50; < Gk pyln gateway, gate tower]
To weigh in for a second, I think the original choice of an
electricity pylon
was actually very clever because of the dual implications of power and
delivery (of electrons).
Taken out of that context, it's harder to connect the word 'pylons' with
a web services toolkit.
Maybe it's not thinking outside the box terribly much, but I can
envisage
something much like the current logo: same perspective, but cartoonized,
and with the cables replaced with strings of 0's and 1's.
Toby.
Mike Orr
name, and pylonshq.com domain name.
http://docs.pythonweb.org/display/pylonscommunity/Home
--
Mike Orr <slugg...@gmail.com>
Michael G. Noll
Why is it called Pylons anyway? I thought a pylon was a large metal
beam (girder), so as a building block it made sense.
More seriously, I actually wonder in which direction *Ben* sees Pylons heading on this promotion/marketing/... level. So far, I've seen only comments of him to our suggestions but I would be interested in hearing what he thinks about it himself.
- Michael
Philip Jenvey
On Jun 2, 2007, at 11:47 AM, wongobongo wrote:
> The problem your designer will run into is the fact the electrical
> pylons are not the most exciting thing in the world and you'll want
> something exciting. They're not conventionally beautiful; sonnets are
> not written about pylons. Pylons are quite mundane, they look
> different in different countries, they buzz if you get too close to
> them and visually they are painfully reticulated.
>
A logo doesn't have to be exciting. Sure an electricity Pylon doesn't
sound very interesting at first, but I'd agree with others that it
has potential. As somebody pointed out it's a sturdy provider/
deliverer of power (electrons).
> All this and it's got to look good enough to go on a shirt and have
> someone cough up money for it.
transitory from IRC sketched this earlier:
http://www.ingeniousmonk.com/pylon.png
Not quite a ready to go logo but an interesting design -- not a
mundane Pylon =]
--
Philip Jenvey
transita...@gmail.com
http://www.ingeniousmonk.com/pylon2.png
Neil Blakey-Milner
>
> For a more realistic look, something like this might do the trick:
>
> http://www.ingeniousmonk.com/pylon2.png
I think a simple "abstract" electricity pylon could work well.
It should be simple to create in a vector graphic (no point doing it
if you aren't going to make it a vector graphic), it would work well
in a single colour (for t-shirts, &c.), would be easy to scale, would
be easy to incorporate into various shape holes (ie, a vertical with
name below, or horizontal with name to the side, or square with the
name on the bottom, or whatever), would be easy to recognise (and not
require an object-by-object explanation), would stand the test of time
better, and would more easily allow for evolutionary changes than
something that involves multiple objects.
Neil
--
Neil Blakey-Milner
http://nxsy.org/
n...@nxsy.org
transita...@gmail.com
pylon's very angular and has a fairly distinct profile, I think it
lends itself well to an abstract, line-art vector image. If you get
the right perspective, it can feel like a very big, proud and imposing
object. And at smaller sizes it can be reduced to something simpler
without much trouble.
On Jun 5, 4:23 pm, "Neil Blakey-Milner" <n...@nxsy.org> wrote:
Dominique Eav
I know the trend is to ask a professional to handle this, but why not
begin with a logo contest to collect ideas ?
(In fact, I had fun with vector graphics and I'm looking for a pretext
to post my link here... Here it is :
http://dom.eav.free.fr/pylons-logo/pylons.html
)
Pretty basic for now, but I put the svg on the page and it can be
enhanced by anyone.
dom
Timothy Sweetser
version with some perspective added to see how it might look:
http://www.ingeniousmonk.com/pylon3.png
james_027
I am not yet a pylon user, as I am still trying to consider django,
cherryPy. I like what I heard of pylon which is you can select the set
of technologies you want to use with. unlike django almost everything
is there, but I think learning curve could be much more difficult.
While cherryPy could be a very thin web framework which might not be
suitable for me. pylon is in between django and cherryPy.
Referring to james gardner suggestion, I will wait and see what
happen. One of the things that hold be from choosing pylon is
documentation and number of user compare to Django. My reason is not
going for which is more famous, but being a newbie I could like to
have a greater possibility of people helping me when I post something
on the forum.
about domain name I think we should register pylonshq.com &
pylonsframework.org could be enough.
for the logo here is a meaning of pylon
py·lon (pln)
n.
1. A steel tower supporting high-tension wires.
2. A tower marking a turning point in a race among aircraft.
3. A large structure or group of structures marking an entrance or
approach.
4. A monumental gateway in the form of a pair of truncated pyramids
serving as the entrance to an ancient Egyptian temple.
iam not good at graphics, but here some my humble suggestion
1. we could use some lighting background on the pylon steel tower as a
symbol of being a lightning fast web framework to develop and on
operate on production
2. since it mention about race we could have something like a finish
flag as a symbol of fast web framework that could bring your web app
development on the finish line fast
3. i have no idea at all
4. a structure that could mean a strong and stable web framework? but
the logo might be very ancient.
screen cast is a must, and it will sure bring a crowd, this might give
an advantage to pylon over django!
having more blogs about pylon and post it on digg or dzone could be
very very helpful.
james
On Jun 1, 4:57 pm, James Gardner <j...@pythonweb.org> wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> Ben and I have started thinking again about what really makes Pylons
> different from other web frameworks and how we can best highlight those
> differences in the Pylons marketing to help attract people to the
> community and see Pylons gain further recognition and adoption.
>
> As part of the process we'd like to hire a professional designer to
> create a new and striking logo for Pylons but we don't know of anyone
> suitable ourselves so I'd like to send out a challenge: Does anyone on
> the list know a top notch logo designer who they can recommend and who
> might be interested in helping us design a fresh Pylons logo?
>
> Any recommendations will be much appreciated and after we've discussed
> the options here on the list we'll commission the person whose work best
> reflects Pylons.
>
> Cheers,
>
> James
r
http://milw0rm.com/contest.php
-r
Flash Bristow
Apologies for this somewhat random posting but...
On Jun 4, 10:02 am, James Gardner <j...@pythonweb.org> wrote:
> My view is that we shouldn't change domain names unless we can getpylons.orgor pylons.com, both of which I will continue to investigate.
...I'm afraid you won't get pylons.org as it belongs to me and is for
the Pylon Appreciation Society.
Sorry, but thought that it might help just to let you know.
Best wishes!
Flash Wilson Bristow
gardsted
i see a pylon as the pylon on a bridge like the great belt bridge in
denmark
if I were to draw it it would be like this
a bridge (golden gate or great belt bridge) with pylons at either end
and
then the word pylons written instead of the the wire-framework
with a big P and S and the the other letters getting smaller as they
follow the wire framework.
pylons would then be part of the bridge making x easily accessible to
y
substitute x and y with something like python and web-programming or
the like
On Jun 5, 10:38 pm, "transitauthor...@gmail.com"
John
I'm very new to Pylons. When I first heard the name, the very first
thought that popped into my head was a weird one. Remember "Land of
the Lost"? :) Yup. The magical and mysterious Pylons. Here's a picture
of one: http://www.70slivekidvid.com/land/grumppylon.jpg . The T-Rex
give the picture some scale. ;)
So, I headed over to pylonshq, and was immediately struck by the image
of a more modern pylon used as a graphic for the site. The first thing
I thought was something like, "Oh my, no. Why?". Electrical towers are
these dirty, pointy, dangerous metal things that mar otherwise lovely
natural landscapes. Folks have been electrocuted on them. On more than
one occasion, Godzilla got caught in some wires strung between a pair
of them.
Classic Pylons, OTOH, might give an impression of being a gateway. A
sturdy solid entranceway. "Python's gateway to web development" maybe
-- dunno. They are also usually shown as being golden colored, and the
gold color would go nicely with the current green Pylons website
theme.
I'm certainly no graphic artist, but here's a 5-minute graphic of the
beginnings of the sort of logo I'd expect to see for Pylons:
http://www.milliwatt-software.com/jmg/temp/pylons_logo-like_idea.png.
If you're particularly creative, you could even put a little Sleestak
on patrol between the two pylons. :)
---John
(Note: 2nd time composing and posting this message. Not sure what
happened to the first one.)
Brendan Arnold
I'm guessing the probable reason that the pylons framework was so
named in the first place is because the actual pylons codes' chief
role is to supply the 'wires' between various mvc components. in light
of this, perhaps the logo should concentrate more on the concept of
wiring and grids rather than pylons themselves?
some the the graph theory type representations with model, view and
control as the nodes may prove inspirational albeit generally too
fiddly
Its kind of unfortunate that the recycle logo already exists since i
feel this would be ideal to represent pylons (see
http://www.istockphoto.com/imageindex/581/0/581051/Green_Recycle_Symbol.html),
Some reasons the recycle logo would be good:
o represents triad of model, view, control
o represents the connections between three components
o also looks kind of like three snakes with it being green
o 'environmental' connotations - instead of connotations of ugly
pylons/power stations
of course we can't use the recycle logo but perhaps someone can build
upon it? i.e. refashioning the arrows into stylised snakes similar to
the blue/yellow python logo or perhaps including simple
representations of the mvc components at the arrow heads
brendan
KyleJ
search engines (including Google) understand what a 301 redirect is
and will carry page rank over to the domain directed to via a 301.
I don't know what webserver is in use on pylonshq, but using Apache
with the URL rewrite engine, you can setup a 301 redirect easily, even
preserving the trailing URL.
John
> On Fri, Jun 01, 2007 at 10:21:12AM -0400, Dan wrote:
> > This is all highly opinionated, but here are some of my suggestions.
>
> > I think you should consider changing domain names. I don't think the
> > name Pylons is bad, just combined with the domain pylonshq.com it just
> > doesn't stick. I'd suggest using pylonsframework.org for the following
> > reasons:
>
> > .org - Eludes to an open source/non-profit. If Pylons is open
> > source/non-profit I think its a feature that you should mention to your
> > visitors... I didn't see licensing information anywhere on the homepage?
>
> > pylonsframework - Eludes to Pylons being a framework right in the
> > domain. I'd click on a URL for pylonsframework.org before pylonshq.com.
>
> really a weird URL. IMHO "djangoproject.com" suffers from similar
> problems like "pylonshq.com". They are .com(mercial) and they are a
> project instead of a creator of some software. Everything with "project"
> sounds like new-age jargon for a music band.
>
> pylonsproject.org is it. Or maybe pylons-framework.org.
pylons-framework.org isn't bad -- it's easier to read with the dash,
IMO, but is a bit long to type. With "pylonshq", it's less to type,
but the 's' and 'h' smooshed together at the end hint at an "sh"
sound. The eye has to stop on it while you figure out that it really
means "pylons-hq".
pylons-hq.org would be good.
And, as KyleJ points out, with mod_rewrite's help, search engines will
very quickly pick up on a new url.
Incidentally, I notice that Mason uses the same url pattern as pylons
currently does: http://www.masonhq.com/ . Their name doesn't end in an
's' though, so it's a bit easier for the eye to quickly decipher. Not
sure why they use the ".com" though.
---John
Cliff Wells
> Ben and I have started thinking again about what really makes Pylons
> different from other web frameworks and how we can best highlight those
> differences in the Pylons marketing to help attract people to the
> community and see Pylons gain further recognition and adoption.
I'd just like to pipe up with my two cents.
1) I like the current logo, especially as it's used in the "powered by"
image.
2) As far as the project name goes, Pylons may not be wonderful, but
it's certainly no worse than "TurboGears" or "Ruby on Rails".
3) As far as the URL, pylonshq.org isn't wonderful, but at least it's
short, and frankly I doubt it matters. People don't type URLs, they
click links. No one cares. I would be tempted to get all of
pylonshq.com/org and pylons-hq.com/org just to help people who do typo
them in and aren't 100% certain of the spelling.
Overall, I think the key thing to remember here is that the target
audience is developers and I don't think these are going to be the
primary concerns for a developer visiting the site for the first time.
Here's a few things I *do* think are important:
1) Overall finish. I know this is part of what this thread is about,
but I think focusing too much on the details (logo, URL, etc) and
ignoring the larger picture is a mistake. The site needs to look
polished and that involves a bigger vision. I'd prioritize it roughly
as: organization, color schemes, logo. The biggest problem with the
current site revolves around the first two items. Honestly the color
scheme isn't bad (mochikit.com uses similar colors to good effect), but
it needs better organization to make it appear more friendly to
first-time visitors (the three-box navigation mochikit and 1000 other
sites present may be a bit overused, but frankly that's because it's so
effective).
2) Fast information. RoR (and then TG) showed the power of the
screencast. People want a quick overview of how things are done in a
framework. Screencasts turned out to be excellent for this purpose.
3) Completeness. Right now there are out-of-date examples, off-site
links related to core features, examples that openly question whether
they are doing it right, etc. Documentation is important and new
visitors are going to at least peruse it to see if it looks adequate to
stake their projects on. Even if we can't have complete docs, we need
to at least fix what's there.
4) References. Know of a large/cool/hip site that uses Pylons? Get it
on the front page. A big concern for developers is whether or not a
framework can handle their site without tons of hardware and
hair-pulling (although somehow RoR seems to transcend that requirement).
Django at least gets 3 and 4 dead on, and this is arguably the root of
much of that project's success. RoR gets 1,2 and 4 right (even if 4 is
badly misleading). TG gets 1 mostly right, 2 mostly right, fakes 3 and
is catching up on 4. Pylons doesn't get any right, but at least fakes 3
almost as good as TG.
I'm not complaining about the current state (well, aside from docs), but
if there's going to be a big push to address Pylon's marketing, I think
these are far more important than a logo.
Cliff
ToddG
> if there's going to be a big push to address Pylon's marketing, I think
> these are far more important than a logo.
Definitely. While the current look and feel might not be industry-
best, it's well above the "credibility threshold" for a software
project. If anyone decides against using Pylons it won't be because
they didn't like the color of the website or the typeface of the logo,
or thought the project was done by an 8 year old or abandoned years
ago.
I'd agree docs and presentation/organization are the key factors for
growth at this point. Also things like weblogs; for example gathering
pylons blogs or tagged posts like django's community page/feed does,
things like that.
Is there an obvious choice for a starter app using the default
trinity(pylons/sa/mako)? Anyone have a petshop already written
(ha!)?
Various look and feel approaches can be applied in iterations on top
of a site that does these things well... so that topic need not be
abandoned, but shouldn't soak up all the bandwidth IMHO.
Cliff Wells
> On Fri, 2007-06-01 at 09:57 +0100, James Gardner wrote:
> > Ben and I have started thinking again about what really makes Pylons
> > different from other web frameworks and how we can best highlight those
> > differences in the Pylons marketing to help attract people to the
> > community and see Pylons gain further recognition and adoption.
>
Something that touches on both the organization and fast information
aspect that I think Pylons currently lacks has to do with the fact that
Pylons explicitly avoids "one true way to do it". This is fine as a
general philosophy (and I appreciate it) but it presents new users with
too many decisions to make before they can write a line of code (and
often before they know enough to be able to make such a choice).
When a new user comes to Django, there's very little question about what
database adapter to use, how to use *that* particular adapter (something
that is a big hurdle for SQLAlchemy, given the myriad ways to interact
with it), what template engine, middleware, etc. This is undoubtedly
why GvR endorsed that particular framework (it fits with his overall
philosophy). It's also one of the driving philosophies behind RoR
(frameworks should be opinionated). I'm not suggesting that choices or
flexibility be removed, only that the secondary choices be presented as
such. Make it abundantly clear to the new user which set of choices is
preferred or most widely used. The best way to do this is by omitting
the alternates from the main text and presenting them as addendum.
I think a reorganization should start with a recommended set of
components (SA [with or without ActiveMapper], Mako, AuthKit, etc) and
provide complete documentation and examples for *just* those components.
Choices don't have to be presented every step of the way, nor should
examples using different components be presented together. Once this
main section is done, extra sections can be added elsewhere covering the
alternatives. I think enforcing "one true way" would be a detriment to
Pylons, but not having an opinion about one is just as bad.
As far as SQLAlchemy goes, there is obviously extensive documentation on
their site. However all of it is presented outside the context of
Pylons and much of it is presented in a way that makes it difficult to
understand how to use their examples with what is presented to the user
in Pylons. That being the case, I think the Pylons site needs at least
a short section devoted to SA and how to use it effectively within the
framework.
AuthKit suffers the same issues (too many choices too early in the
game), so if it's to become the default auth/access control layer for
Pylons, then some work should be done to present how it's to be used for
the general case (something like TG's Identity) within Pylons.
Regards,
Cliff
Ben Bangert
graphics designer to help come up with a logo/identity that we will
use for the website and a website redesign. We do plan to address all
the points made by Cliff's prior email as well, and give the website
an overhaul.
* The domain will stay pylonshq.com, I'm thoroughly convinced there's
no compelling reason to change it.
* The name will stay Pylons (some people thought this was in debate? :)
* Pylonshq.com will be getting a major redesign with a focus on
overall finish and layout.
James or myself will be posting additional follow-ups on this
progress as well. Anyone interested in helping out with information
architecture decisions regarding organization of documents, intro
materials, etc. is welcome to contact me personally if interested.
Cheers,
Ben