NEM Official Logo

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#21

@tompa Thanks for your post (sorry the quote button isn't working for me!)


We will make a decision soon about what to do, as we want to have branding in place by around August, and we do want some consensus from the community about what to do.


What we are considering now is:


    [li][font=Verdana][size=78%]Try to convince Loi to do branding (he's at least as good as people on 99 designs)[/font][/li]
    [li][font=Verdana][size=78%]If that fails, try to get a designer I know who worked at Apple to do branding[/font][/li]
    [li][font=Verdana][size=78%]If that fails, go to 99 designs of behance and get branding. In the case of 99 designs, we would go with a platinum reward and I would write the explanatory text and have it commented on by the community before sending.[/font][/li]

    [font=verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]I think by next week we will be ready to take action one way or another. The more I see it, the more I like the current logo. However, I do feel that a pro designer can do a better job and build a complete brand package, and I think most people feel the same (say something if you don't!).[size=78%][/font]

    [font=verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Take a look at http://www.nxtcommunity.org/Nxt-Style-Guide.pdf[size=78%][/font]
    [font=verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]This was made by a pro company is and really solid design. However, it feels too corporate and cold. That is why I was hoping to get someone within the movement who understands what we are about to try to lead design. 99 designs might be the best way to find this, though.[size=78%][/font]

    [font=verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]If anyone has used 99 designs before, please comment on your experience![size=78%][/font]
#22

Hi all,

i guess it is good to get a community consensus about the logo.

In this point Makoto is right: It is not only design, we need to find a brand that matches NEM, our ideas, our main goals and the people we would like to address.

But i do not agree his words about the NXT design:

However, it feels too corporate and cold.


This is your opinion, i personally LOVE the NXT design and would be very happy if we can get something similar for NEM.
I like simple, strict, clear, elegant and precise designs as we are talking about a currency that needs merchants to adopt it, my feeling is that the "multi colour harmony feng shui logo" we currently have does not fit for a serious business and a technically well designed crypto. I don't want to belittle your design, it is good, but for me it just does not fit. It is too "soft" and difficult and has too much "wellness oasis" factor imo, this is why i currently favour the cube logo. But that is only my opinion.

#23

A poster PM me in Bitcointalk that "This is the coin which pushed through a logo the community didn't want.  That is the first among many unpopular things to come, imho. " He refers to this voting https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=668434.0

@Makoto: you should be fair and have an open process where the community can make the final decision. If you play favoritism with your personal opinion, you will lose the popular support from the community and in this space it is a serious issue. Anyway, I won't talk about this issue anymore. Hopefully, the administration would have a good sense to make the correct choice.

#24


@tradecraft: Of course. All possibilities should be considered.


Makoto,

We can go to 99 designs, have them compete, to bring into the logo the concepts NEM represents, and  incorporate the idea and meaning behind POI. And yes, outsource the idea.

Also, you can proceed with trying to get the designer you like to remake the logo you envision for NEM.

Then, the community can decide.

Listen, I know this is a decentralized movement, but you guys made NEM. Tell me to back off, and that you want the logo you have, and honestly, I'll back you up. I do my BEST to get the rest of the community on board. I think if you said this, most would give it to ya anyway.

We can do better IMO. But if it's what you want. It will work.

You and the rest of the devs made an amazing system. You want the logo to incorporate certain elements. So tell these things that you want, to an ARMY of artists, and let them do their thing.

Your guy beats them all great.

The idea of, we want a guy IN HOUSE, to make the logo, is just so...
it doesn't fit, to me, the concepts that bring us all here in the first place. That's the old way to me.

But if he wins, he wins. That's the beauty of the whole thing. It's seems that you see the logo as very important and that you want the creation of it to be more personal I think.

We have the best product. We need the best artist. Open it up to everyone.


+1. "A New Economy starts with you" is great quote and I think that could be the key concept behind NEM. It empowers the audience and invites them to participate and to contribute. It signals that NEM is open and belong to the community. The cube as a logo could be suggestive of this concept even though the designer did not think about it when he made it. 
#25

A poster PM me in Bitcointalk that "This is the coin which pushed through a logo the community didn't want.  That is the first among many unpopular things to come, imho. " He refers to this voting https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=668434.0

@Makoto: you should be fair and have an open process where the community can make the final decision. If you play favoritism with your personal opinion, you will lose the popular support from the community and in this space it is a serious issue. Anyway, I won't talk about this issue anymore. Hopefully, the administration would have a good sense to make the correct choice.


Do note that in a lot of things we do in life, somethings need to be pushed. Otherwise, there will be no conclusion and nothing moves. None has so far come close to what a logo should be.

There have been lots of comments. It is easy to be a critique but it is never easy for anyone to come out with something to please everyone. Some will be vocal, many will be indifferent while many others may like just like it.

In a lot of these, we will need to practice the 80:20 rule but it has to be a firm conclusion.

I note you have been the quite vocal and that's ok. But it would be good if you can contribute some ideas to the logo as well so that all of us can then put a vote on whether what's in your mind is acceptable by many.

Please remember that "one man's poison is another man's food".

In any case, trust Makoto that he will put this to vote, come the day to choose a logo. We will need to be firm on this by August.
#26


A poster PM me in Bitcointalk that "This is the coin which pushed through a logo the community didn't want.  That is the first among many unpopular things to come, imho. " He refers to this voting https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=668434.0

@Makoto: you should be fair and have an open process where the community can make the final decision. If you play favoritism with your personal opinion, you will lose the popular support from the community and in this space it is a serious issue. Anyway, I won't talk about this issue anymore. Hopefully, the administration would have a good sense to make the correct choice.


Do note that in a lot of things we do in life, somethings need to be pushed. Otherwise, there will be no conclusion and nothing moves. None has so far come close to what a logo should be.

There have been lots of comments. It is easy to be a critique but it is never easy for anyone to come out with something to please everyone. Some will be vocal, many will be indifferent while many others may like just like it.

In a lot of these, we will need to practice the 80:20 rule but it has to be a firm conclusion.

I note you have been the quite vocal and that's ok. But it would be good if you can contribute some ideas to the logo as well so that all of us can then put a vote on whether what's in your mind is acceptable by many.

Please remember that "one man's poison is another man's food".

In any case, trust Makoto that he will put this to vote, come the day to choose a logo. We will need to be firm on this by August.


I have been vocal because I have a strong aesthetic sense. I don't know why you wrote "it would be good if you can contribute some ideas to the logo as well so that all of us can then put a vote on whether what's in your mind is acceptable by many. " because I did that many times already here and in BTT forum. Are you in the logo committee ? because I never seen any of your comment on the relevant matters to choosing a GOOD logo but rather the comments are presented as some types of generic disregards or excuses.

For example: "It is easy to be a critique but it is never easy for anyone to come out with something to please everyone." how is that relevant at all?  I have said before I respects the works having been done and mind you that being good at decent critiques is not easy as you think. A good critique opens a pathway to the understanding of the subject matter and many thanks the critics for that.
#27

Oh maybe you still ask what are actually in my mind. In a general concept, I agree with owon and andme (I could write something similar if the text were not written yet). In the actual logo form, I like the cube. I also constructed the link between the cube and NEM's core idea of "a new economy starts by you". @rockethead feel free to put that to a vote.

add: antagonizing posts are tiresome and can be destructive so let's avoid that.

#28

Let's keep it positive, guys.


We are working with Loi to create branding, so let's see what he comes up with. Currently neither the box nor the current logo that I made are really where we need to be, so let's work together to make this happen.


If Loi comes up with something amazing, we can have the community vote on that and be done with it. Otherwise, we can go to 99 designs and try to see what we can get as a branding package. In any case, things are starting to come together and this month will a month of action on this.


I like that NXT design is very solid, but it does feel a bit too corporate for us. We are going against the OLD economy based on greed and oppression, so copying corporate design seems to be a bad fit for us. That being said, Loi is the designer, so you can probably expect something modern and clean. I am excited to see what he can do.

#29



A poster PM me in Bitcointalk that "This is the coin which pushed through a logo the community didn't want.  That is the first among many unpopular things to come, imho. " He refers to this voting https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=668434.0

@Makoto: you should be fair and have an open process where the community can make the final decision. If you play favoritism with your personal opinion, you will lose the popular support from the community and in this space it is a serious issue. Anyway, I won't talk about this issue anymore. Hopefully, the administration would have a good sense to make the correct choice.


Do note that in a lot of things we do in life, somethings need to be pushed. Otherwise, there will be no conclusion and nothing moves. None has so far come close to what a logo should be.

There have been lots of comments. It is easy to be a critique but it is never easy for anyone to come out with something to please everyone. Some will be vocal, many will be indifferent while many others may like just like it.

In a lot of these, we will need to practice the 80:20 rule but it has to be a firm conclusion.

I note you have been the quite vocal and that's ok. But it would be good if you can contribute some ideas to the logo as well so that all of us can then put a vote on whether what's in your mind is acceptable by many.

Please remember that "one man's poison is another man's food".

In any case, trust Makoto that he will put this to vote, come the day to choose a logo. We will need to be firm on this by August.


I have been vocal because I have a strong aesthetic sense. I don't know why you wrote "it would be good if you can contribute some ideas to the logo as well so that all of us can then put a vote on whether what's in your mind is acceptable by many. " because I did that many times already here and in BTT forum. Are you in the logo committee ? because I never seen any of your comment on the relevant matters to choosing a GOOD logo but rather the comments are presented as some types of generic disregards or excuses.

For example: "It is easy to be a critique but it is never easy for anyone to come out with something to please everyone." how is that relevant at all?  I have said before I respects the works having been done and mind you that being good at decent critiques is not easy as you think. A good critique opens a pathway to the understanding of the subject matter and many thanks the critics for that.


I say it again that one man's poison is another man's food. It is never the prerogative of anyone to claim that he or she has strong aesthetic sense as anyone else could claim the same. It will then be a never ending debate of who is more aesthetic.

I have not been vocal because, I voted for Makoto's initial design and therefore there is no need to comment further unless there are new ones that are worthy of comment or to vote for.

I personally do not like the cube but I reserved my comment because I am waiting for more designs to come in.

I penned the initial description of the logo after Makoto came out with the design. I pushed for a logo to be finalised because we had not been conclusive on the logo. None of the logos put forth till Makoto's design was acceptable enough to be adopted as an interim logo.

No decision was firm and no conclusion was made. That's why I made the comment, "Do note that in a lot of things we do in life, somethings need to be pushed..."

There are many things we need to do and Makoto has become a utility man hopping from being a developer, marketeer, writer and a designer and we must recognise that he has put in a lot of effort to make this logo good.

I note you have been vocal in pushing the cube. Anymore alternative designs?

And I said that it is "easy to be a critique" because good critiques are far and few in between. Therefore, a negative vote or criticism may not mean anything at all as the person who voted against it simply may not have a clue.

We shall put all designs to vote anyway and there is no need for us all to talk about it until designs are put to vote. I would appeal to all to contribute their designs for consideration rather than to comment. By commenting, there is less likelihood of coming out with a good design. A picture paints a thousand words.

I have purposely refrained myself from commenting all this while because this is all very subjective and will lead to dissatisfaction and unhappiness among many.

If you read through my few posts on the logo, my comments have been indeed very generic and seldom talking about the logo itself but only reminding ourselves that this is all very subjective and people should contribute designs instead. Further, we need to be reminded that this is not a cryptocoin design per se but a crypto economy. Therefore, the logo should represent that.

So, with your comment of, "disregards or excuses" I am not sure what you meant by that.

Finally, I am all for putting designs to vote than to just comment. All logos put to vote should be accompanied with an explanatory note. We leave it to the community to vote for the designs thereafter.


#30

Thanks for your work Makoto, hopefully during the next period we'll be able to find what we're looking for.

Maybe Loi can get some inspiration from this:

Nxt Style Guide 2.0
Download link: [url=http://www.nxtcommunity.org/Nxt-Style-Guide.pdf]http://www.nxtcommunity.org/Nxt-Style-Guide.pdf

Nxt Brand KIT (all the files you need)
Download links: [url=http://www.nxtcommunity.org/design-elements]http://www.nxtcommunity.org/design-elements

I like very much what Nxt has done in this space. It's probably the best I've seen in crypto.

I'm not saying we should copy them. What they did conveys their own message. NEM is different but this could be a good inspiration in creating something something of great quality.

#31

@Loi:

None of the current logos are really where we need to be. I think this is a good way to proceed:


    [li]I will write up an explanation of NEM and PoI and give this document to you.[/li]
    [li]You can think of a symbol (without text) that represents this.[/li]
    [li]You can make a logo (with text) that uses the symbol.[/li]
    [li]You can make a complete branding package for NEM (if you feel you are up to it).[/li]


    Does this sound reasonable?
#32

@Loi:

None of the current logos are really where we need to be. I think this is a good way to proceed:


    [li]I will write up an explanation of NEM and PoI and give this document to you.[/li]
    [li]You can think of a symbol (without text) that represents this.[/li]
    [li]You can make a logo (with text) that uses the symbol.[/li]
    [li]You can make a complete branding package for NEM (if you feel you are up to it).[/li]


    Does this sound reasonable?


Is this new logo up to a vote or is this de facto the official logo? How can we be sure the new one would better the current pool? I would suggest :

1. You write a text description of what you think NEM and the logo should represent.
2. Put it here and solicit the community comments.
3. Open a bounty for creating a logo that best fits the description (or better yet using 99 design, design crowd etc.)
4. Solicit the community comments, voting for the best logo.
5. Loi can work with the wining logo to create a branding package and other advertisement materials.

I agree with Loi that making an official logo and making branding materials are two separate tasks and they need to be taken care of properly in an order.
#33

@ARGpentem:

I want to write more details about PoI in my description than I want to make public right now.

Any design that Loi or 99 Designs creates will be put up for vote along with the current pool of logos. Loi has been putting a lot of effort into design for NEM, so we should give him the first chance to make a symbol and a logo. If he doesn't want to/doesn't come up with something that can reach consensus, then we should go to 99 Designs.

Anyway, we are basically proposing the same thing. No one will stop you from writing your own thoughts of NEM here on this board. I can try to incorporate them into my document for Loi. Depending on how it turns out, I might make the document public. Not sure yet how specific I want to get.

#34

I actively hate this logo. Sorry but I do.
It looks like an Olympics logo and no one ever likes or remembers those. Hardly anyone I've spoken to likes this new logo. Before I saw this logo I felt Nem art direction was perfect and NEM would be unstoppable, after seeing this I started having doubts.

Specific Reasons:

Logo is way too busy, too many shapes/colours.

Colours are offputting, they are contrasting not complimentary

Space in between the 'tadpoles' looks like a weapon, like a Chinese throwing star.

Logo is too Asian looking, we are a global movement not an Asian one. Asian designs are cool in their own way but they are busy and don't generally sell a product which is why most Asian companies use western style designs.

Logo is generally just too jagged and painful to look at. Does not relax the viewer.

It's not particularly memorable either.

Doesn't say 'economics'.

For a logo that is supposed to symbolize concepts it doesn't tell me anything about those concepts. It could be a logo for a washing machine company for all I know. Is it supposed to be telling me my finances are going down the drain?




#35

@robbieboy:

The outer ring and the inner space turn in opposite directions, conveying balance. Though it might be hard at first to recognize symbols that are unfamiliar, I think it is best to treat it as a puzzle and think about what the symbol means to you, the consciousness that perceives it.

As far as the colors go, etc, this is not the final logo, so don't worry so much. NEM is still young and searching for its identity.

Seek and ye shall find.

#36

@ARGpentem:

I want to write more details about PoI in my description than I want to make public right now.

Any design that Loi or 99 Designs creates will be put up for vote along with the current pool of logos. Loi has been putting a lot of effort into design for NEM, so we should give him the first chance to make a symbol and a logo. If he doesn't want to/doesn't come up with something that can reach consensus, then we should go to 99 Designs.

Anyway, we are basically proposing the same thing. No one will stop you from writing your own thoughts of NEM here on this board. I can try to incorporate them into my document for Loi. Depending on how it turns out, I might make the document public. Not sure yet how specific I want to get.


I will offer my write-up (an explanatory note) to the cube logo if Loi agree for me to do that. The note will have the "A new economy starts with you" as the core message and incorporate andme and owon's inputs on style and technique. I may solicit more comments from the community to incorporate in the note.

tbh I want to see more logos and there is decent chance that something else will be better but the cube does grow on me over times so I will help it to be on the slate.   
#37

@robbieboy:


The outer ring and the inner space turn in opposite directions, conveying balance. Though it might be hard at first to recognize symbols that are unfamiliar, I think it is best to treat it as a puzzle and think about what the symbol means to you, the consciousness that perceives it.


I don't mean to offend, I guess you put a lot of effort into this logo but no amount of convincing can get me to like it, because a logo should not need to convince. It should be instantly likeable. As a designer myself I know what it's like to put time into a project and people don't like it but also you should recognize when a logo is not right. Too many people simply aren't feeling this logo and that is the polar opposite of what a logo should do. It's not a bad design as such, it just isn't right for this project and replaces a design that was better (the little box). I think you have tried to be too clever and incorporate too many design principles maybe.

I think your quote about consciousness sums something else up, the design is way too MYSTIC. Mysticism isn't really what we need in finance. Yes I agree a logo might have a hidden meaning or something, but the obvious one should be apparent first and THEN if one chooses to view longer there can be something hidden. But this is just too busy and annoys me.

But I will say if it has to be this logo then the one with the relaxed colour scheme is far more pleasing. I do however prefer the original little box thing, nice and simple.
#38

@ARGpentum The write-up shouldn't be about justifying a design, but rather explain what NEM is about. NEM is not a cube. NEM is not a tomoe or a circle or anything like that. NEM can be symbolized by those, as NEM can be symbolized by words. These are just simplifications of true reality, however. That being said, we should start with trying to get to this real meaning. What is NEM, as you would explain it to your mother? Would you said it is a box or a tomoe? (she would think you were crazy)


@robbieboy All of economics is based on mysticism (invisible hand) and animal spirits (http://goo.gl/9RuyrK).

#39

@ARGpentum The write-up shouldn't be about justifying a design, but rather explain what NEM is about. NEM is not a cube. NEM is not a tomoe or a circle or anything like that. NEM can be symbolized by those, as NEM can be symbolized by words. These are just simplifications of true reality, however. That being said, we should start with trying to get to this real meaning. What is NEM, as you would explain it to your mother? Would you said it is a box or a tomoe? (she would think you were crazy)


@robbieboy All of economics is based on mysticism (invisible hand) and animal spirits (http://goo.gl/9RuyrK).


??? save for the next day.
#40

@ARGpentem If you can think about it, that would be great. I think this is a hard question, but you are definitely capable of coming up with a good answer.


The point is, we should get to the meaning first, then we can discuss symbology and design. Start with the heart and the body will follow. What I want to do is to help Loi get to the heart. Then he can do the rest as he is a professional :smiley: