Pandora Logo?

[HanDuo]

Hello folks,

I really enjoy it to take part in the logo discussion. As I am german I only followed the talks on the german forum - until today. The german forum is not as big as this one but I thought that it is time to set up a little link between them. I think it could be helpful by framing out the ideal pandora logo.

All in all I think, that the designs on the english forum are more advanced than the ones you will find on the german pages.
I can't give you a summary on the talks of the german forum, but I think many of us are heading for a similar direction: a logo should be simple but at the same time express a certain meaning.

If you want just click through the german logo discussion board to see the evolution of the logo designs there.

Logo discussion german forum

Then be patient or just skip this part. There are a few things I want to talk about and the text got quite long (but hopefully not boring).

First thing: after reading some insertions on this board I want to give you an example for a good logo

and then tell you some things about the evolution of my own layout.

I don't like BMW cars, but I think they have a brilliant logo. You might not know that BMW started as an air plane-engine manufacturer (today they have a joint-venture with RR) and you also might not know, that blue and white are the colors of the state of bavaria (the B in BMW stands for Bayrisch/bavarian, M for engine, W for manufacturer).
So what you see in the BMW logo is a propeller in the colors of bavaria. Simple but full of meaning. Thats what I call an ideal logo.

With this in my mind I was thinking quite a while what a pandora logo should look like and what meaning it should express. I started with sketching out the p&Ia idea. But then I realized that it is much to complex and does not look very good (even though the idea itself is very interesting).

I went on googling for "Pandora Logo" to get some ideas and put some of the results on the german board.

Scroll down a bit to see the google resultus on "pandora logo"

I also followed the box-idea for a while, but then I realized that it doesn't say anything about the purpose of the pandora. It's just following the myth of the name. I had to be honest: Pandora does not mean that the development team is going to sell paper boxes, opening a pacel service or that the engine is shipped inside of a box. Sorry guys, I know some of you had the same idea but it's to simple, therefore just boring and also has nothing to do with gaming (a chest might work better).

So, after I had rejected the box idea I thought it should be more like the nintendo logo. Simple but something the visitor always will remember. Something that lets him or her think: "Ah yes, its the pandora logo". Something unique, so that we all have the feeling: That is definitely pandora.
I started looking for some nice letters and ended up with the porsche type, which I also posted on the (german) board. (The design is 50 years old but I think still state of the art.)

As it is protected I had to change the letters a little bit, but for the first time I also had the feeling to be on the right path.
Some designs on this board use similar letters and I think we should stay with a type like that, but that just my opinion.
By the way, my favorites designs are from Cauterize, Eolair and Magnulus. (I hope I am right with the credits here. If not, sorry - there are so many quotations on your work that one easily gets confused.)

For me the most interesting part of my work was the logo in the logo. I hope you are able to see what I had in mind, cause otherwise I better put my layout away.

I know it looks a little bit chunky. I just made some quick conceptual designs to see what I come up with. Maybe the O looks better in red color, we will see. If some people like it, I will pick up the pen (or mouse) and lay-out a more precise version of it.

Finally (after all that "what a logo should be like"-stuff) here comes what I want to express: I think the O can be seen as a smilie (maybe even pac-man) but also as a screenshot of pong, often regarded as the world's first video arcade game. (Retro gamer aspect.)
Another more abstract aspect: one could take the smilies mouth (or pong player bat) as a cursor (which could stand for the pandoras keyboard or the machines linux shell) and the ball or eye as the pointer on the touch screen (or even a dead pixel, but thats the worse case scenario).

Now you know why I was mentioning the BMW case.

I really don't know if the logo is ready already but I think at least it combines simplicity with a hint on the pandoras usage.

Anyway, just let me know what you think and tell me about your first impression.

Maybe you want to combine my O with one of the really nice layouts from Cauterize, Eolair or Magnulus. If you like the idea, feel free and just pick it up to see what you get.
In case you have some new layouts post them on the german board as well, so we can follow the development all together. I have the feeling we are coming closer to the final version.

One more thing: let's not use Tux. It belongs to Linus (there is a story about Linus and his favor for penguins) and most people think about linux when they see Tux. Pandora needs a pandora only logo. Tux can be printed on the (BOX!) package, but not on the engine itself. It would be to confusing.

Last but not least: For all who never had heard of Pong before, Here is a link to Pong at wikipedia: pong at wikipedia

If you are not to tired yet, an interesting story...

So long
HanDuo

 

[Alex.]

Looks good, I would also try a version without a border around the O.

We should make a separate logo thread where each of us posts exactly once (and use edit to add new logos) , to make it easier to browse through everyone's submissions.

 

[jmetal88]

*snip*

I'm glad you explained it. At first glance it looked like an (US) electrical outlet that was missing a prong.

 

[atomicthumbs]

Shirohagen's phrase and logo make for the perfect guerilla marketing campaign. Simply supply a template, then people can get stickers printed for a small fee. They can stick them on the outside of places like game stores and whatnot; they would have the logo, slogan, and the URL.

MASSIVE WIN.

The logo can make or break the product. This will make it.

Note: the black version seems better for this.

 

[Sphinxter]

something Ive been tinkering about with

Silicon Graphics dead yet? Too close? Not really...

 

[HanDuo]

QUOTE
I'm glad you explained it. At first glance it looked like an (US) electrical outlet that was missing a prong.


Sorry jmetal88, now you lost me.

Can you follow?

Then just go ahead, I listen...

 

[atomicthumbs]

QUOTE
I'm glad you explained it. At first glance it looked like an (US) electrical outlet that was missing a prong.

Sorry jmetal88, now you lost me.

Can you follow?

Then just go ahead, I listen...

US electrical outlet

 

[Prophet]

This is a great thread and some really lovely ideas. I had to have a go myself, just in black and white to start with...

Oooooh... B)

Now that's good.

That last one in black really looks classy.

 

[White Demon]

What are you talking about...? It's not 1337 at all. If anything it's coder speak... something that is very geeky and hence entirely fitting.

This is not: P&|a

Ah, I get it now... and/or. Clever.

Not that it changes my opinion on the logo.

OK, EVERYONE STOP LOOKING. EOLAIR's design a few pages back is easily the best I've seen yet. Let's use that.

The webpage design shown a while back looks nice too.

 

[Prophet]

I really love some of the suggestions here

This is my contribution (sorry for the large pictures).

Damn, now that looks qute good!


Is it just me, or would Pandora look nicer if the analog pads/platforms were black instead of grey?

 

[Magnulus]

Is it just me, or would Pandora look nicer if the analog pads/platforms were black instead of grey?

I've never thought about that, but yeah! You're right! The pads should be the same colour as the unit itself, but keeping the borders a light grey or white.

 

[Shirohagen]

icurafu: I think you're right about the type on my logo, the descender of the P is being confused a little by the tint, I'll take it out I think. Hopefully I'll get some time later today to do some development on it. Any suggestions?

As for the Pandora itself, the pads could be black, but one thing I'd like to see is subtler letters etc on the keyboard, it's a bit severe at the moment, smaller and maybe gray instead of white although I know it's just a mockup at this stage...

®

 

[parag0n]

One thing i would want is to *NOT* have the word pandora plastered all over the unit in giant letters, as it just looks tacky. Personally i'd prefer to just have a small version of the logo in the bottom right hand corner of the screen, and a bigger version (1/4 of the screen height) on the back of the screen.

This is a reason to make the logo the same either way up, so it is correct if the unit is open or closed!

As a side note, i really like handuo's idea, pity it isn't symmetrical .

 

[A_SN]

Alright, I don't like to sound like a douchebag (no, I love it!) but that whole "open minded" stuff and all the intendedly witty slogans and such are not good. Why? Because they're frigging obvious and unoriginal.

"Oh let's see, what could be a good slogan and logo for a product named after a chick who's famous for opening a box? Oh, a lighting of genius hit me! What about the logo is an opened box, and the slogan says something that has to do with opening shit up? Like.. "Open".. err.. "Open Your Mind"? OMG ALFRED PUSH THE "PATENT & TRADEMARK" BUTTON QUICK IM MORE WITTY THAN FUCKING OSCAR WILDE!!11111"

 

[Shirohagen]

Calm down mate, let's see your ideas then...

®

 

[Yrx]

That last one by Shirohagen is really cool. Something like that would be great, that can stand alone as easy recognition without any text to accompany it. Like if you saw the Playstation logo, you would instantly know what a commercial was for.

No one wants to take a whack at my rune idea?

And yeah, the slogans are dumb. But it kind of has to be. "Live in your world, play in ours?" Heck, the Wii commercials are a fricking pun on the console name. As long as it doesn't say Color Sound on the system (thank you, iAudio), I doubt anyone is going to be having convulsions. With that said, I do think "Open Minded," or anything like that is probably a bad idea. It almost suggests that the user has to be open minded to enjoy the system, as opposed to something standard like a PSP.

I think something like "Open." would work really well. Just the word with a period after it. It's like a descriptor, or a command, or whatever way you want to take it. You can do with it what you want, just like the system h34r:

That's actually a really cool idea. I definitely think any advertising before launch should be viral, and then more descriptive ads afterwards. Just the logo, and underneath it, "Open."

 

[Shirohagen]

Yrx: I like it! Just the word 'open' is great, the simpler the better really. That's more of a call to action too then, like a challenge to release the ominous and powerful contents of Pandora's box. I'll just use 'open' on the next version I do.

...what was your rune idea?

I think that just because something is obvious after you've seen it, doesn't mean it doesn't actually work. That's the point really, there's no point having something which needs explaining, or explains too much. The fact that the word 'open' describes two of the most fundamental aspects of the Pandora is a gift! It will be readily understood by people seeing it. Slogans and taglines work because they plug into familiarity, otherwise it wouldn't be possible to sum something complex up with a couple of words. It's the stuff the words bring with them that does the job. open is a nice shaped word, with open letterforms, it's also more easily understood internationally than other words might be, and could help search engine queries as it's likely to be part of a relevant search term...

Having said that, this is a logo thread and I only put the tagline in for a bit of fun. As I said it's also where the web URL might go or anything else, so it's not a big deal.

Open is definitely key though, there's no point stubbornly throwing it away when it's right there for us.

 

[Yrx]

Can someone do me a favor?

If you go here, there's a list of runes. If someone could make a design incorporating a stylized version of the O rune and P rune, that would be cool. I have no artistic skill whatsoever, or I would do it myself, lol.

My reasoning behind this has a couple layers. First of all, runes by themself will add to the mysterious nature of the name "Pandora." A logo just featuring these two runes (O and P for OpenPandora, if you didn't get it) without any text would be awesome for viral ads. Just picture a black page in a magazine with just those two symbols in white, and a link to openpandora.org at the bottom. I know that would pique my curiousity.

Another reason for this is the dual nature of runes. The O rune means "estate" or "inheritance," which I think is perfect considering how Pandora will inherit from the GP2X. The P rune means "chance" or "fate," and there's another word used caled "orlog." I found a quote on another website that describes the concept.

QUOTE
Orlog
Orlog is described in Nordic mythology as being the external law of the Universe. It seems at times to be a kind of 'Primal Goddess', an entity without beginning or ending, older and superior even than the gods and giants. The decrees of Orlog could not be set aside, and it was the pattern set by Orlog that the Norns wove, themselves bound by powers beyond their control.

'LOG', derived from Old Norwegian LAGU, means 'law', only it is a much broader, more binding, concept than our modern word. It also encompassed the concept of 'lore', knowledge and wisdom of the past, for use in the present. The term 'OR-LOG' means something along the lines of First Law, Primal Law, Ultimate Law (The Law, as in the Law or Word of God). Also, it could be seen as First Principle or Primal Layer. To sum up, and to greatly understate it, Orlog is the ultimate purpose, or great plan, of Creation.


Arrogant? Sure. But it's pretty darned cool.

So if someone would like to take my suggestion, the specific runes I was talking about can be found on the Wikipedia article I linked to earlier, and also right here.

This was my idea from before, I think it got lost pretty quickly. lol

 

[Shirohagen]

Ah, I see. Maybe there's something in that. They're quite Bluetoothy aren't they?

I guess it's just another layer of meaning that's all. I'd be tempted to stick to a rune-esque rendering of the P so it at least supports the name even if you don't know the meaning. The actual rune for P is a little disappointing actually.

We should have one above each port instead of the standard labels to confuse people!

®

 

[craigix]

The analgue pads are actually chromed.