Round 1 of the voting for a modernized Eclipse Logo is now finished. We had an incredible 2128 people vote; a great response! Thank you.
Unfortunately, Houston we have a bit of a problem. The two leading design concepts (Logo 1 and Logo 2) really don’t fit the original goal of the task: to modernize the Eclipse logo, not create a completely new one. The existing Eclipse logo has a LOT of brand equity and recognition. We [I] just can’t give up on that and start with a brand new logo. It is not the responsible thing to do.
When I started this project I was thinking along the lines of what Ubuntu just did to their branding, some simple changes Any new logo needs to pass a very simple test: Any Eclipse community member should be able to look at the new logo and instantly recognized it is associated with the Eclipse open source community.
I’ve spoken with a couple of graphic artists. Some have said that Logo 1 is probably the nicest design and the fact that Logo 2 was on a dark background might have gained it more attention. Unfortunately, this still doesn’t mean they past the simple test mentioned above.
It turns out I made a big mistake with Round 1 voting. When people went to vote, I didn’t explain the criteria for selecting a new logo. I also shouldn’t have included in the vote logos that were not acceptable. Ironically, in the bug where we kicked off the project, a lot of discussion was spent on the criteria. In fact, Logo 1 has the fewest nominations and almost didn’t make it to the final 10. Remember we had over 200 concepts that were narrowed to 10.
So what is next to Round 2?
We are going to proceed to a second round of voting with a shorter list of candidates. Unfortunately, I have to disqualify Logo 1 and Logo 2 for the reasons above. This means Round 2 will have Logo 3, Logo 4 (existing logo), Logo 5 and Logo 6. I am also going to add Logo 8 since I personally think it is the best design. The colours need to be toned down but it is the what I had envision for a more modern Eclipse logo.
I realize this may not be a popular move. I apologize if people feel they have wasted their time. Doing an open vote for a graphic design was a risky decision but I still think it is the right thing to do for Eclipse. I hope to have the Round 2 voting up later this week. This time I will have much clearer instructions. 🙂
Ian Skerrett 
Maybe you could treat the rounds qualitatively. What you can extract from the first one? People want a more clean logo? Ok.
Not glossy (8), not confusing (10), but a more bold (2) and distinctive one, maybe (1)
The second round might gather another kind of feedback. With other logo candidate, with different features, perhaps?
its just a thought.
Not that I don’t like that logo, but I’m wondering whether logo 3 would pass the logo-recognition-test… IMHO it differs more from the existing one than logo 2, doesn’t it? (I didn’t voted for logo 2 😉 )
Logo 3 is too close from the “AT&T” one for me…
Can you include logo #8 using the blue in the current logo?
Also interesting to see #1 with 2 stripes added (will make it look like #8 without color).
ooops, I naturally ment “with the stripes added”
Jens v.P. sure Logo 3 will pass the logo recognition test, but people would recognize the AT&T brand, not Eclipse. 🙂 In this regard Logo 9 would be a better candidate and much cleaner logo then #8. You need to think how logo would work in different applications, from web and paper to t-shirts (e.g. the old logo was rather hard to put on fabric).
No wonder Logo 1 was the favorite, I believe all it needed to get the brand recognized is to use the same old font.
Ian, I think that the process you are using to select the logo is rather wrong. You better work with a good graphic designer, present him your criteria and let him to use his creativity, instead of trying to select the best out of the worse… I apologize to people created those, but you have to understand that one of the biggest open source communities do deserve a good professional graphics.
Love the way you add in #8 because it’s your personal favourite.
It looks to me like we are heading for a “let’s keep the original as it is the least worst scenario” here.
IMHO Logo 8 has to much clutter and looks a bit old. I prefer Logo 3 and Logo 9 which have a much clearer appearance.
@Ugo thanks for the feedback. I do agree people are interested in a change Not sure if we can make more of a statement than that.
@Jens As with anything graphical, it always depends on the person. I find logo 3 to look a lot like the Eclipse logo, but it depends.
@Nicolas some other people have raised the AT&T concern. The designer has submitted a revision that has straight lines and not curve. We certainly have no intention of creating confusion.
@Eugene I agree this is a non-traditional approach and it might not work. However, I have spent time with professional graphic designers and the results can vary too.
@Oisin I hope that is not the case but I have always stated that keeping the original logo is a fine decision.
@Lars the designer for logo 8 has submitted a new concept that removes the star burst. That might clean it up for you.
@Henrik I would like to see Logo 8 with some more traditional color. I think we can do that as a refinement, if people like the concept.
Full disclosure: I am the creator of Logo 2.
First of all, thanks to everyone that voted – especially thanks to those that voted for my entry 😉
I am, however, bothered by Ian’s decision to disqualify the two most overwhelmingly popular entries as chosen by the members of the Eclipse community. These folks took the time to review the entries, make comments and suggestions for improvement, and vote in this poll and I think they deserve better than to have their input vetoed.
Let’s suppose for a minute that entries 1 and 2 managed to get more than half of the entire set of votes only because the criteria for voting were not clearly explained. If you were to explain the criteria clearly in the next round of voting, and these two entries really are completely unfitting given the now clearly explained criteria, then there is no reason to exclude them from another vote, right? There is no way they could again be overwhelmingly selected by a more informed and discerning Eclipse community… right?
On the other hand, let’s suppose that 1,084 out of 2,128 Eclipse community members cast their vote for logos that they really did believe to be recognizable, modernized improvements over the existing logo. In this case then, a disservice is being done to those people that took the time to participate in what they were told would be a community process – a process that was supposed to value their time and input.
There are two choices available at this point. One let’s the community continue to participate in this process with all of their time and input valued and honored in selecting the best outcome for everyone. The other choice results in a waste of the community’s time by subverting their very clearly stated input.
I would agree with Justin that if one has to disqualify more than 50% of the votes, one should spend a minute on what the community is trying to say here.
Especially, as I think that the creators of #1 and #2 tried to follow your criteria – to me, both are not “completely new” logos, but derivatives of the existing one. And to modernize also means to change, no way around that.
And are you perfectly sure that the existing logo has “a lot of brand equity” and that it is not rather the “logo + Eclipse text” combination? I hardly remember the logo showing up on its own anywhere prominent. So my guess is that it is rather the “Eclipse” name that is the equity – and this won’t be lost by #1 or #2 either.
This surely sounds rude, but it was the first thing to come to my mind when reading this:
What’s the meaning of a vote, if you do what you think best? And that does not only concern logos 1 + 2 but also the inclusion of logo 8. Basically you’re saying: vote whatever you want, I will drop logos I don’t like and include logos I like no matter what the poll result is.
Is this really what Community Vote means?
I would just keep the current logo. It’s modern enough. It looks good on white background and can be blended on other backgrounds as well (given that it has Alpha channel information embedded).
Another thing… the image included in this post is supposed to be the base to choose the best logo from? A highly wrongly compressed JPEG? Serious? A PNG with correct alpha channel would make look the logos less 8bit and crappy. Especially the current logo.
@justin I am sure you are very disappointed and I apologize for wasting your time. Unfortunately, I don’t see the point in having a second vote on #1 and #2. As I have consistently said, the final decision on a logo is going to be made by the Foundation, Neither of these two logos would be acceptable to the Foundation, so putting them to another vote wouldn’t change anything.
@kai Graphic design and branding is very subjective, so I think you and I will just have to disagree. Unfortunately we don’t have the resources to do a quantitative study on the Eclipse brand equity or the logo. This is all the more reason I am being more conservative on any change.
@daniel I don’t think you are being rude. I realize the optics of my action are not great and I am trying to be as transparent as possilbe. The community vote and feedback is telling me a number of things, such as 1) people are open to changing the logo, something I wasn’t really sure and in fact it surprises me, 2) we have received a lot of great feedback and concepts, something we would not have gotten if I did this in isolation, 3) we started with over 200 concepts and there is no way I could have narrowed the field down to the list we have now, 4) I am hoping the community involvement will result in more buy-in for any change, if we do have a change.
In the end the community vote is providing guidance. The final decision will be made by the Foundation. I hope this helps explain the situation.
@Phillip point taken. The image above is not meant to make a decision. When we ask for the feedback on the second round we will have better quality images.
My first thought was that you are suggesting to ignore the absolute majority of votes (>50%), which makes the voting process quite superfluous.
I’d also like to support Daniel in pointing out the further arbitrariness of including logo 8 just because you like it.
Please keep the logo selection process open either by restarting with the nominee selection, this time with clearer criteria for how close the new logo needs to be to the old.
Or – IMHO better – continue with the full result of the current votes, perhaps asking the two leaders for tweaking their suggestion to be closer to the existing logo – as you seem to be asking for tweaks anyway.
@Markus, i agree with you. I think the result of the first round could be feeded back to the authors, this time with a more clear proposal of what is really needed: not a full redesign.
The logo #2 is clearly different from the others, the dark background benefits it. Remeber we must be able to use the eclipse logo with many different backgrounds, lets put all logos in the same background for comparison.
feed the round back to the designers, its easier
[Fair disclosure: I voted for logo 1]
The existing Eclipse logos are so varied in their designs that I don’t think anyone associate any particular logo with eclipse. To me, the brand consist of two or may be three parts (1) the word ‘eclipse’ (in *lowercase*) (2) a circle somewhere and (3) [preferred] dark shades of blue is used for (1) and (2). As long as these elements are kept, we recognizes the brand.
The Eclipse brand is targeted not at Joe Public but developers and any of the logos in round 1 will do the job for this target audience.
It is not unusual to change the brand radically. It is, however, necessary to manage the transition. We have one company changing name from Kentucky Fried Chicken to KFC, Liverpool Victoria Insurance (in UK) to LV or Norwich Union to Aviva, without lost of brand recognition.
I think it is worth considering starting over from a radically new one than try to have some (non-existing) links with the old one.
On round 1:
While I am sadden by the fact that the two most popular designs did not make it to the second round, I cannot say it is a waste of time in round one.
Having _two_ ‘wildcards’ in round one is unusual, but there is value in having wildcard. The fact that there is a preference for the wildcards signals and this developed into a discussion (again) is a good sign. It probably also point out that the project still have things to consider.
What Ian do owe us is to run through the results with the Foundation. I got the feeling that he is making the decision on his own. That does not sound nice. Presumably he is empowered to do this. Unfortunately, the first round did go haywire as far as the project aim is concerned and it is time to seek advise from the Foundation’s Board.
I am 100% sure he did not meant it, but the intonation of this post does give me the sense that he is dictating to us what he wants, i.e., you can have any colour as long as it is black.
A good compromise to me is to put logo 1 (the most popular one) through as a wild card. On the voting side, Ian can reiterate the design goals, and perhaps make voting for the wild card more difficult, e.g., it is the only one that ask you “are you sure” 3 times. Let’s see whether the community changes its mind _after_ being reminded of the strong preference the project has. This way, we mitigate the sense of wasted effort in round one, and gauge whether the community accepts the reasoning of the project. Ian can then go back to the Foundation Board and say I tried my best. This is what the community prefers but this is what the project would prefer, you make the final decision!
I think the best way forward is to put equal presentation of both cases to the Foundation Board in the final selection process.
In some sense, the community is not an insignificant part of the target audience. May be we should do something like reality show choosing who to start in a musical show, i.e., let the community decision goes through. I think this is one of the case where the community decision, which might not be the same as that of the project, can turn out to be better because it has the support of the majority of people who cares.
@Wu MingShi I think you and I will have to disagree on the branding question. fyi, companies that do undergo radical brand changes will often spend millions of dollars to support the change. Obviously we don’t have the resources to support such a change.
I know the optics of my decisions do not look good and I apologize for the confusion and frustration I have created. I am sure there are many different ways I could proceed to the next step. Unfortunately, I can’t support a process that would create more confusion. In the end, Logo 1 and Logo 2 just aren’t in the spirit of what we started out to accomplish.
I am confused. Ok, the community is ignored (or used as guidance) because they voted mainly in favour of logos that do not fit the original requirements for a new logo. May I ask why such logos were included in the vote then in the first place? Couldn’t the Foundation have allowed only votes for logos that fit the requirements?
@Philipp I screwed up the initial vote. I shouldn’t have allowed those logos as nominees. The irony is that logo 1 received the fewest nominations and almost didn’t have it on the list.
@Ian: yes, interesting. I do not like logo 1. As stated before I prefer the current one 🙂 Let’s see how round 2 turns out.
IMO logo 8 is too close to Debian.
Given that we want the best we can get, it is OK for me to do slight modifications to logos for round 2. I think it makes sense to feedback the round 1 voting results into the designers, in order to gain value from the vote.
Given that designs may be modified and the picklist for round 1 was chosen by a Jury as well, I have less of a problem with adding a personal pick. The important thing is we *do* value and use the vote results. I’m less religious about *how* we use the vote results.
I agree that feeding back the round 1 results into the graphic
I think the fact that logo 1 and logo 2 have been included into the round 1 should cancel the vote completely. Remove 1 and 2 from round 1 and maybe the next 4 would not be the same.
I might be wrong, but the best way to fix round 1 would be to do it again with logos that fit the Foundation criterias.
My 2 cents.
Why not give the creator of #1 a chance to tweak it to be more in line with the “revision not revolution” idea, and then include it in round 2? As others have said, making the font the same as the current logo might be enough. Not only would that be a gesture of good will to the community who voted (ie, help correct the mistake you’ve admitted to), but you might actually end up with the best logo overall instead of a compromise.
Aside: Honestly, I just don’t see how #1 is any more different from the current than 3, 5 10, or even 8.
Fail. Why have a vote if you are not going to honor the outcome. It’s clear that you have your own vision of what the logo should be, community be damned. It seems to me that the community doesn’t like the concept that you are trying to push on them. So just pick the logo yourself and don’t waste peoples time please.
It looks like round 2 is not using logo 3, because the stripes are horizontal in the first round 2 logo, more like logo 9.
That’s ridiculous, why have the voting when you don’t respect the results.
Ian … I see now why you didn’t want to be responsible for picking the Simultaneous Release names. Its not easy, is it. 🙂
@Jeffrey and Michal I am sorry I’ve wasted your time. However, we are getting great feedback from the community. Most importantly people are open and interested in change. This wasn’t obvious to me when we started. I also know if we do make a change, it won’t be to the concept I liked the best. Therefore having the community input is making a difference.
@eric you and I will have to disagree on how close #1 was to the current logo.
@david lol, release train naming is a piece of cake. 🙂
Full disclosure – I voted for #2.
I want to respond to a couple of the points you made in your post.
First “Any Eclipse community member should be able to look at the new logo and instantly recognized it is associated with the Eclipse open source community.”
I think by eliminating #1 and #2, you are ignoring your own guideline. The Eclipse open source community did instantly recognize the logos – and voted accordingly. In vetoing the most popular selections with the reasons you’ve stated, you are telling the participants that they are incapable of selecting an “instantly recognizable” logo from a list of very similar logos.
Next, you referenced what “Ubuntu just did to their branding, some simple changes”. What the Ubuntu community offered looked even more varied than the Eclipse selections offered in round 1.
Finally, you included your own personal preference in round 2 even though it didn’t get 3rd, 4th or even 5th but 8th place. Doing this totally invalidates your arguments for eliminating 1 and 2. First off, they weren’t very different from the original Eclipse logo. Second, the Eclipse community not only instantly recognized 1 and 2, but they responded positively to them. That is the whole purpose of branding – as the graphic artists you consulted should have told you.
I’d also like to add – In a few of your responses you kept mentioning “the optics” of your decision. I don’t think this is a perception problem, Ian.
* A new logo was sought.
* Rather than spend lots of money on developing a new logo, submissions were requested from the community.
* The community responded – generously submitting hundreds of graphic designs that would easily have taken a thousand hours total to create.
* Then, rather than having a small group of people go through hundreds of submissions and pick one, they were put up for a vote.
* Once again, the community rallied to the cause and selected the graphic they most readily recognized as a modernized Eclipse logo. In doing so, they also saved Eclipse man hours and money.
After all that, you respond by saying “I apologize if people feel they have wasted their time.” – People don’t “feel” like “they” have wasted their time. It isn’t a perception or “optics” problem. You wasted their time. You wasted a lot of their time. Own it.
You also said “Doing an open vote for a graphic design was a risky decision”. No it wasn’t. It was a very financially sound decision. Considering the community you have here, it was also a very wise decision. These aren’t your everyday AOL users. This community is populated with very intelligent people. Your decision, actions and words insult them and the spirit of the community as a whole.
I’m not going to suggest what I think should be done about this. Your responses to others of “I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree” or “I’m sorry you feel that way” indicate that you’ve made up your mind. You’ve picked the one you like. You’ve even left the option open to completely waste everyone’s time and scrap the new logo altogether in favor of keeping the old logo. Really?
I voted to keep the original logo in the round #2 voting that just began because I don’t think this has been a fair vote at all.
I see other people were allowed to amend their original submissions. Why was the same option not given to our top two voter getters?
It looks like people asking other people and getting the ‘wrong’ answer.
It shows a poor sense of democracy, if someone excludeswinners of elections.
I’ll do no second vote.
@bec Sorry I am not sure how to say it, yes I wasted people’s time. I own it. I could have stopped the entire project but I still think there is value.
I have been very clear from the start that keeping the old logo is a very valid option.
@chris two of the submissions did make changes based on some of the feedback but the basic concepts were kept the same.
I am not sure how to fill the second form:
Should the Eclipse Foundation keep its existing logo? YES!
If the Eclipse Foundation did update the logo, which of these options is best?
Well I want neither of these. If this is the only choice, you should stick to the old one, though thats not that great either.
I voted for #1, because it’s by far the most professional looking logo. Not to offend the creators of the other proposals, but most of them are far too shiny and glossy to suit a professional tool like Eclipse, especially #8.
I’d seriously suggest to review your decision and consider are bigger change to the better. I don’t see how that should be a problem. There are no “Eclipse”-signs in streets that customers could overlook because they are unaware of the new logo. Most current and potential Eclipse-Users will just go eclipse.org or start the SDK and be happy to find a new look.
@Ian
“I am hoping the community involvement will result in more buy-in for any change, if we do have a change.”
Then you have failed miserably.
Asking people for an opinion and then telling them that they are wrong does far more damage than not asking at all.
I won’t bother voting in round 2 because it’s clearly not worth the effort.
You have already made up your mind – just pick the one you want and get on with it, because it’s pretty clearly going in that direction anyway.
I think logo 2 satisfies your criteria better than most of the other options, and far more so than logo 8.
It:
* Is in the right colour scheme
* Has the logo behind the text
* Actually modernises the logo rather than just shifting things around a bit.
You have a different opinion. So be it, but if you don’t respect the community’s opinion, then why did you ask for it?
That may sound harsh, but it’s my honest reaction to your post.
This vote demonstrates exactly why good design is not a democratic process. Logo 8 is the best design, and it has a real vision behind it (see the comments in Bugzilla). Good design is sometimes about breaking new ground for the brand, and inevitably this feels like an uncomfortable shift at first. This is why a vote has to be used as just _one_ indication of the right choice, not _the_ indication. I think Ian was right to retain Logo 8. This doesn’t mean that voting is a waste of time.
It’s a shame that Logo 8 has now been sanitized to placate the masses. If any of the remaining four are now chosen, will the world even notice?
@Joe I think you’re making too many assumptions that people are reacting this way out of some sort of rejection of change. Were they “uncomfortable” with breaking new ground, they would have responded overwhelmingly to keep the original logo or not at all. Instead, it looks like thousands of members have responded overwhelmingly in support of changing the logo.
Regarding voting – yes yours is one school of thought. The US Electoral process is similar – the popular vote can sometimes be upended by the Electoral College. Usually, though, when this happens there is a negative backlash from the voting public. That doesn’t mean that they’re resistant to change. Their complaints are just as legitimate as the complaints by the Eclipse community.
Also, I couldn’t disagree more about logo 8. I think it looks almost like an early 90s logo. There is too much going on. There are too many colors. It is fussy and overdesigned – the opposite of modernized. Eugene Kuleshov made a really good point when he said “you need to think how logo would work in different applications, from web and paper to t-shirts (e.g. the old logo was rather hard to put on fabric).” I agree. I think the choice of #8 is shortsighted. Overriding the community’s choices not once but twice was just adding insult to injury.
I’m very disappointed by the second round because the logo that I chose in the first round was the current number one. I think this logo represents what Eclipse really is. A clear platform, meant for hobbyists and professionals.
However, it’s ok for me if another logo wins but I won’t vote in the future anymore as long as the community choices are ignored.