From owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Dec 24 04:46:28 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 98E1416A4CE; Fri, 24 Dec 2004 04:46:28 +0000 (GMT) Received: from sccimhc91.asp.att.net (sccimhc91.asp.att.net [63.240.76.165]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 07A4643D45; Fri, 24 Dec 2004 04:46:28 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from freebsd@nbritton.org) Received: from [192.168.1.10] (12-223-129-46.client.insightbb.com[12.223.129.46]) by sccimhc91.asp.att.net (sccimhc91) with ESMTP id <20041224044618i9100rg29me>; Fri, 24 Dec 2004 04:46:27 +0000 Message-ID: <41CB9F16.1010405@nbritton.org> Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 22:46:14 -0600 From: Nikolas Britton User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0 (X11/20041219) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Paul Richards References: <20041223112731.GA32750@ninja.terrabionic.com> <89b41e4704122303546aaa8d83@mail.gmail.com> <20041223133440.GC786@myrddin.originative.co.uk> In-Reply-To: <20041223133440.GC786@myrddin.originative.co.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit cc: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org cc: Daniel Blendea cc: freebsd-www@freebsd.org cc: jsha cc: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated? X-BeenThere: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: FreeBSD Evangelism List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2004 04:46:28 -0000 >>From a business perspective we look amateurish. > > I REALLY REALLY agree with this point, from the prospective of an outsider the website and "Image" conveys a real lack of professionalism, which is not true. I'm looking at the start page for FreeBSD right now and here are the things I do not like about it (please don't be offended if I step on toe's and ego's, I am only trying to better FreeBSD): 1. The "FreeBSD" logo is crap, not beastie (he's a keeper!!!, I'll hunt you down and do bad things to you if you take him away!), Just the black wannabe (and badly done) 3D effect "FreeBSD" part, really, I hate it. Redo the whole logo in photoshop with a bold, antialiased modern web font: (Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, Century Gothic, etc.) and forget the whole 3D effect as that is so 90s. Generally all of your logo designs are unprofessional (the logos at the bottom of the page: FreeBSD MALL, UseNix, Daemon News, and Powered by FreeBSD for example) 2. I cringe when I see Times New Roman, again redo the whole site with a modern web font: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, Etc. (ever here of Cascading Style Sheets?) 3. The color scheme is not "complementary" anyone who has been to art school or taken design classes will know what I talking about, read up about basic color theory here: http://www.color-wheel-pro.com/color-theory-basics.html (again, ever here of Cascading Style Sheets??) 4. I like the Beastie logo on the boot loader screen but ASCII art is unprofessional... It would be better if you made the color ASCII beastie the default. I have no real issues with the layout of the site and it would be nice if the installer was more user friendly but I am content with the way it is, maybe you should change the color scheme of the installer to match the website? Here are some example sites: http://m0n0.ch/wall/screens/system.png http://www.mozilla.org/ http://www.horde.org/logos/ http://www.xfce.org/ http://www.gnome.org/ http://www.gimp.org/ http://www.php.net/ http://freebsd.kde.org/ http://www.google.com/ http://www.apache.org/ http://www.adobe.com/ http://www.openoffice.org/ http://www.sun.com/ http://www.suse.com/ http://www.novell.com/ http://www.ibm.com/ http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/ http://www.mysql.com/ http://cocoon.apache.org/ http://www.w3.org/ http://www.penguincomputing.com/ FreeBSD is badly in need of a PR/Design/Marketing department.