Favicon

[steltz]

I made a couple with a free font called LD Music. Can someone explain the process of turning it into a png or whatever needs to happen to make it a favicon. I will post it here if I can do this.

[steltz]

Sorry about the cropping, I haven't worked that one out yet.

[steltz]

Again, can't get the cropping right, but that's another one. I like the IMSLP one better, though.

[jujimufu]

I can't see any images (I can only see text saying Image ..)

[pml]

That could be because the image Steltz is linking to is unhelpfully located on a hard drive somewhere, rather than being on an internet website.

c://favicon2.jpg

[pml]

I quite like the second example on the left hand side, with the larger p piano symbol to hammer the musical connection - but that's just me. I don't see any point in trying to represent the letter p as a minim stem down. Would you mind trying the same with the fourth and second examples on the right side, imslp and IMSLp? (In the latter case the p will have to have the descender lifted up so that the bottom sits on the capital's base line.)

Regards, PML

[steltz]

My image was on a hard drive. How do I get it onto a website? (Excuse my ignorance . . .)

[jujimufu]

hm... I think the p in the end of IMSLP doesn't work as well as the p in the beginning of PML.

Maybe we could try with a different font for the rest of the letters, because Maestro TImes is too similar to the p? Or maybe a slightly differently coloured p or imsl?

[steltz]

Okay my favicons are on the web now, so my posts above should show what they're supposed to. This is LD Music font. The lower case p is mostly like the p in piano, but if not enough, fonts can be combined, so petrucci or maestro can be used for that one letter. I like the upper case M with the notehead looking like a foot. Any other comments?

[Leonard Vertighel]

It seems to me that in this thread we are presently discussing three different things:

• a logo: an immediately recognizable graphical element which would be part of the IMSLP/PML "brand". Examples of highly recognizable logos include the Nike "swoosh" and the current Apple logo.
• a logotype: a particular rendering with a specific font etc. of the project name. Sometimes this can replace the logo (e.g. Coca Cola), but a combination of logo+logotype is more flexible.
• a favicon: a specific 16x16 pixel image. This was the starting point of the thread.

A good logo would automatically solve the issue of the favicon, as we could simply use the logo. (See for example the Nike or Apple Inc. websites.) A complex logo design would preclude this possibility. For example, the Wikipedia logo is not suitable for use at small sizes, hence for the favicon, the "W" from the Wikipedia logotype was used instead.

[jujimufu]

Should we start a new thread page for the logos, or should we continue here?

I think a good place to start would be to think what IMSLP/PML represents, what it stands for, and how this can be represented in concrete symbols (because "freedom of information" and "public domain" are a bit hard to visualise on a 16x16 image :X ).

Apple's logo is, well, an apple, and Nike's logo is the wing of the statue of Nike of Samothraki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winged_Vic ... Samothrace).

In five keywords, I would use: free (as in freedom and as in beer), music, library, online, wiki (based on wiki, like wikipedia is).

And we also have the whole of music notation symbols in our repertory for signs, which is good and bad, because we can choose something that is recognisable by most people (e.g. a treble clef, a quaver/eighth-note, a staff, a whole rest maybe), but at the same time we have to choose something that has not been abused by millions of other sites on music (or if we must, then we should draw our own symbols to make them more individual and characteristic).

I think it's going to take a while before we come up with something that can concretely represent IMSLP and is easily recognisable...

[Philidor]

A good logo would automatically solve the issue of the favicon...

Exactly. In terms of branding, everything flows from the logo. Or, to put it another way, until the logo's got right - a good, light, professional image which management and users are happy with - IMSLP branding will be flawed. That's not a criticism, just branding 101.

IMSLP is a FANTASTIC, UNIQUE, HUGELY VALUABLE brand towards which users are fiercely loyal, so deserves only the best branding. It could be that some of the (great) favicons discussed on this thread will lead to a good brand logo. But that's going about things a*se over t*t. Research > draft > experiment > consult > agree a logo THEN move on to brand sub-divisions, e.g. a favicon.

ETA, what's this btw? The IMSLP logo? It's a nice design.

[imslp]

I agree generally with Leonard. I'd concentrate on symbolic logos rather than logotypes. There is actually a very nice logo done by someone a long while back (a year or so ago), but I was unable to secure the permission of (the person who created the logo just stopped responding). Perhaps no permission is needed because it is a logo after all, but still. That is why I would emphasize that all IMSLP logos created from now on should be owned by IMSLP to prevent this sort of thing from happening again.

The nice logo was a clever setting of the letters IMSLP, where some letters or parts of letters make up parts of the next letter, etc. The entire thing was actually quite simple, and everything was hand-made (no actual fonts used).

I would aim for a logo that may be even simpler than that. It doesn't have to be a take on "IMSLP" or "PML". A circle is a good place to start

Maybe we can have a thick black circle symbolizing the public domain, and a blue 8th note with the notehead off-center to the top right of the circle (but inside the circle) and the stem going down and protruding out of the bottom of the circle. Just a random thought. I'm sure other people have more creative ideas.

[jujimufu]

Ok, I had a try at designing something.

Just to make things clear: I don't expect this to appear on the IMSLP front-page tomorrow. I did not draw this as an attempt to set the logo, but just to keep things going, and anyone is (obviously) free to add, correct, remove, tamper with, or change entirely the image, or create their own.

It would be great if we could have lots of suggestions going, so we could inspire each other and get things working.

That been said, here's my idea:



I really like the idea of using circles, because circles are endless, the don't have a starting or ending point, and there is no hierarchy. Circles are also more feminine and less masculine, an attribute which I think is more descriptive of emergent organisations/groups/websites rather than established ones, and IMSLP is -of course- the former.

The 'off-centric' (is there a word for that? I bet there is but I am blatantly ignorant of its existence and only makes me look like a fool...) circles represent how things expand - they have a common starting point but diverge to something bigger, which is how I see IMSLP working - each one of us adds a facet to IMSLP that is not pre-known, and can only exist through our collaboration together with a starting point: to contribute to an online library of public domain scores and share music with everyone who has access to the internet. No one can know what kind of scores will be uploaded, what kind of langauges IMSLP might be translated in, what kind of new pages might be created, who will download this content, who will sue us next etc etc, which is part of the fun and joy of being a member of such a community (and wikipedia the same - who would have known what wikipedia would become when it first started?)

The bird stands for freedom (couldn't think of anything less cliché), and it is attached to the treble clef for matters of pure aesthetic pleasure. Its head also looks slightly like a condom, but that is highly irrelevant so I shouldn't have mentioned it.

The musical material on the stave is quite minimal - I haven't added any dynamics or slur markings or anything because I thought it would be too much. However, one could add a discreet "pml" under a note as a supposed dynamic, although in smaller versions of the logo that would clearly not be visible.

I was also thinking about adding colours, but I think it would be good to limit ourselves to maybe 3-4 colours (including black and white) - this way the logo would be more easily memorable, and easier to port to favicons, thumbs, banners etc.

Another idea I had was to use a tree instead of a bird, to signify "knowledge" (and which also bears connections to growth, development, seeding/sharing, etc), but I think it would be a lot more difficult to do a simple drawing of a tree than a simple drawing of a bird. Also, the tree symbol would not emphasize the "freedom" part of IMSLP (as Trees of Knowledge in the past have had a high cost) (for example the tree of knowledge in the garden of eve - now *that* was expensive, kicking us out of heaven for trying out some fruit!).

For the favicon, for example, we could dispose of the bird and notes, and just have the five off-centric circles. That would be small, simple, recognisable, and instantly related to the main logo.

So, there you have it.


I also that maybe we could start thinking of a phrase we could use to accompany the title of IMSLP. Yeah, ok, IMSLP stands for "International Music Score Library Project", but that's not really a catchy line. Wikipedia, for example, is "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit." What is IMSLP? (maybe with less words, or maybe something like "Create. Collaborate. Share." or something).

[pml]

A couple of suggestions:

please don't put short duration rests on the upper half of the stave, since these look completely wrong when inverted as opposed to other notation which is designed to be invertible (even so, the quaver pitched on B has its tail facing the wrong way). Minim, semi-breve, or longer rests work fine, but crotchet, quaver and shorter do not.

The short music example has a clef and key signature, could a nice bold PML become the time signature?

Regards, Philip