[XPS-devel] XPS Logo Design Information

[Reid S. <ras...@re...>]

Logo Designers,

I'm sending this email to everyone that applied to help with the logo
design and other art work for the XPS project.  To assist with
confidentiality, I've Bcc:'d you so the email addresses don't show up.  

I thank you for the strong interest you have all shown in the XPS
project and for your submissions. My apologies in not getting you
feedback before now. I'm in the process of a move to Silicon Valley and
things are a bit hectic in my life right now. It will settle down toward
the end of  September -- your patience greatly appreciated.  I've also
been undecided as to how I should select among all your fine talents. 
So, I thought I'd let you folks decide how you'd like to participate in
the project. This email will describe exactly what I'm looking for so
you can make a decision about how you'd like to participate.  If you
wish to continue to volunteer on this project after reading this
message, you must email a response to this message. I will assume that
anyone who hasn't responded by 9/14  is not interested.   For those who
do respond, I will add them to the SourceForge project immediately.

Volunteer Basis
The entire XPS project is being developed on a volunteer basis, my time
included. People who volunteer for the project do so because they are
excited about the idea of building a new application server platform
that is completely open source, state of the art, and involves
extensible programming with XML.  Sometime later this year, I will be
forming a non-profit organization to give a formal organizational name
to the group of people that work on the project. It will also make it
easier to get funding for the project if/when that becomes a reality. 
The project is aimed at commercial viability using a model similar to
Red Hat and JBoss. However, at this time there are no promises. There is
much work to be done and no money to pay for it.  Those who join the
project at this early date will be  the first to be compensated if/when
the project reaches commercial viability.

Competitive/Cooperative Design
Because six of you have shown interest in designing art work for this
project, I have decided to let you work competitively or cooperatively,
if you so choose.  If that's doesn't work for you, I understand
completely and hope there's no hard feelings. If you wish to collaborate
rather than compete with the other artists, please contact me and I'll
email your request to the other respondents. 

About XPS
The purpose of the XPS project is to bring highly effective, efficient
and powerful programming tools to the lay person (i.e. someone who is
not a computer programmer). The project consists of three basic
components: 

        * XVM: XPS Virtual Machine: a state-of-the-art application
          server that takes care of the technical details such as
          threading, synchronization, network interface, portability,
          source repository, etc.
        * XPLC: XPL Compiler: a compiler for the XML based programming
          language XPL. This component turns human readable XML code
          into instructions for the XVM.
        * XPLEC. XPL Extension Compiler: a compiler for extending XPL to
          do new things, particularly to support domain specific
          languages. This allows XPS to be customized to particular
          areas of expertise.

A good analogy for XPS is the way a PhotoShop plug-in works. PhotoShop
itself is like the XVM, providing the raw rendering and image
manipulation capabilities. The XVM provides the raw computing
capabilities.  The plug-in interface is like XPL; it lets PhotoShop be
extended to do things that PhotoShop doesn't do inherently. XPL is the
interface to the XVM.  The XPLEC is like the plug-in itself .. it
permits people to easily manipulate their images in wild and wonderful
ways.  However, the difference between PhotoShop and XPS is quite
different. PhotoShop provides an extension capability in only one
knowledge domain (artistic rendering)  while XPS will support this
extension capability in any domain.  That is, chemists, economists,
musicians, and politicians will all be able to write XPS programs in a
language that is suitable to their domain. For example, a chemist would
write programs in terms of atoms, molecules, reactions and isotopes. He
doesn't have to worry about technical things like memory, transactions,
permanent storage, algorithms, etc. The entire point behind XPS is to
extend the reach of computer programming to every field that can benefit
from it without having to become an expert programmer.

Themes, Motif, Ideas, Concepts
The logo and subsequent art work that gets developed for XPS needs to
convey certain messages to the viewer.  This is where the challenge is
because there are two conflicting themes that must be portrayed: 

        * a solid/strong/robust foundation (i.e. the XVM is a
          solid/strong/robust base upon which to perform computing)
        * a fluid/extensible/easy to use interface (i.e. the XPLC/XPLEC
          allows rapid programming in a fluid, easy and extensible
          manner) 

The successful design will convey both of these themes in equal balance
so that the viewer is immediately assured of both the successful
execution of their programs and the ease with which the program can be
written.  We want to project an image of quiet confidence and strength
but at the same time there needs to be a wistful playfulness to the
design.  I child should be intrigued. A curmudgeon should be comforted. 
Colors should be subdued but not dark.  With the foregoing being said,
the art work needs to look "cool" as well. It should catch the viewer's
attention immediately and convey the two themes immediately. 

Ultimately, the project needs more than just a simple logo or splash
page. The winning submission will be the one that competently presents a
whole theme for both the web site and printed materials. The logo is key
to developing the theme as it is the focal point, but the logo can't be
developed in isolation from the other works as they must blend together
well.  Furthermore, the logo needs to work both statically (i.e. on
paper with no animation) as well as dynamically (i.e. on a web site with
animation). 

The web site for the project will eventually be www.x10sible.org (domain
already acquired) so feel free to use "x10sible" in your design.  

I've often thought of using a spring or elasticity effect to convey the
extensible part of the theme, however don't limit yourself to this idea
.. use your imagination to come up with new ideas to convey
extensibility.

Any use of a metallic, industrial or riveted effect to convey the
"solid/strong/robust foundation" will be frowned upon so save yourself
some effort and skip that idea .. its been done and looks tired these
days ( in my opinion).

In addition to the two main themes above, we also want the artwork to
convey the following attributes: fast, elegant, portable (i.e. works on
many computer platforms), well-designed, efficient, comprehensive (does
a lot for you), easy to work with, new (i.e. a new way of programming
computers), not for nerds and geeks only, stable, reliable, and secure. 
I don't expect all those things to be covered in a single logo but
thought I'd mention them so you have some ideas about what I"m looking
for.

Form Of Submissions
The XPS project is inherently an open source and Internet based project.
Consequently, the types of artwork that will be accepted should use
common open source non-proprietary formats.  For multimedia, please
ensure the piece is compatible with Plugger 4.0  (multi-format plug-in
for Netscape that handles a wide variety of multi-media formats; see
http://fredrik.hubbe.net/plugger.html for details). For bitmap based
works, please submit in GIF, JPEG, PNG or another format supported by
The GIMP (Gnu Image Manipulation Program, see http://www.gimp.org/ for
details). For vector graphics, I will accept only SVG format because of
its tie to XML. As an exception to these rules, I will accept
submissions in Shockwave-Flash format (SWF) since Macromedia is so good
about making their readers freely available on all platforms.

The design needs to work electronically as well as in print.  This means
the motif should be limited to shades of at most 3 colors. Using
standard PANTONE colors would be preferable as it makes printing
easier.  Select PANTONE colors that have good web equivalents. 

Submissions should be accompanied by a written description of how the
work satisfies or uses the ideas in the Themes, Motifs, Ideas, Concepts
section above.

If your submission is large or contains multiple files, please compress
it to either a gzipped tar file (*.tar.gz) or a zip file (*.zip).

Questions
Please submit your questions about the project to the developer mailing
list at ext...@li.... I will do my best to
answer any question I receive in a timely fashion.

My Best Regards,

Reid Spencer
XPS Project Team Lead
ras...@re...