I have added an agenda item to the upcoming members meeting to allow members to discuss, and hopefully meet quorum in order to vote on this. Here’s a link: Regular Member Meeting 20160114 - Dallas Makerspace
In the meantime, here is an informal poll on whether members of Dallas Makerspace would prefer to continue using the current Dallas Makerspace logo, offer an updated version of the current logo to be used, or change our logo to the completely redesigned version proposed by Michael Paskar.
Keep our current logo with no design changes
Update our current logo - keeping the general design; but, update the appearance
Use the completely redesigned logo as proposed by Michael
0voters
Related side note: I’ll make a separate post in a moment; but, just a reminder: PR is having a meeting this Thursday, January 7th from 8:00 PM - 9:00 PM in the Conference Room at the 'Space.
The very nature of a membership driven organization is that decisions and actions by anyone, including board members are subject to the review of the members.
For instance, if members objected to a board action, they have two options. Vote to change board membership at the next election OR to have an item on the membership meeting agenda to be voted on to over rule the board.
The original poll seems tobe asking a valid question? Whether its results affect the outcome is a very different thing.
My only complaint about the new logo is the font size. When I first saw the logo I thought it was something for the city of Dallas. What popped in my mind was DALLAS makerspace.
But, as has been mentioned many times, that ship has sailed.
Let me remind people that I am The PR Chair. and I Have been voted in to decide and influence the consistent and professional brand that makerspace deserves.
For Lisa To create this Poll is definitely a step backwards, and a very conniving way to push her own agenda.
Change is hard for people to understand and handle.
My only objection to changing the logo was the potential cost, and that was
addressed by Alex; however, I was at the membership meeting where you first
presented the ‘new’ logo, and one thing I noted at the time was your language
denigrated the prior logo and its creator. Specifically you claimed we needed a
new logo because we needed something more ‘professional’. And this seems to be
echoed in your statement above. Despite the mistaken use (by many more people then
yourself) professional means simply something you paid for. It is not a reflection
of quality of the item produced. We are a non-profit makerspace, not Techshop. We
need nothing ‘professinal’ at all. We are mostly amateurs in the true meaning of
that word as well. We do what we do because we love it. And frankly, I would
put much of the work produced by our amateurs as far above much of the professional
work we see in our marketplaces.
It is not ‘being excellent’ to denigrate another members work.
Further, despite your apparent dislike of the current logo, it seems many members
do like it. Comparisons between things like logos are subjective and asthetic
choices–people of good intent can and will disagree about such things. If you can
provide objective flaws of the old logo that are addressed by your new one, then
by all means do so, but please cease denigrating another maker’s work on what appear
to be purely asthetic grounds.
This statement is both unfair and I believe a violation of our policy to be
excellent to one another. Lisa clearly doesn’t like your proposed logo. That is
an asthetic choice, and apparently one shared by a number of our members. That
she wants to raise that concern is both valid and within the spirit of our
organization.
Change is not the same thing as improvement. Which I believe is Lisa’ point.
I would like to ask everyone involved in this argument to please sheath your weapons and lets see if we can compromise.
First, Michael is a talented designer and I’m personally appreciative of the time he is donating to the space for this design. But, there is a vocal group of people that have issue with the design and the deal with it response from Michael is only escalating the Bullying tactics of Lisa and Brooks. I don’t want Michael to step down from PR or have some PR coup launched against him (like what happened to me when I was head of PR). He is more than qualified for the job, and as Lisa is one of the social media runners for DMS we should try and mend this fence.
My suggestion for a middle ground solution is the we make the Word Mark from the Logo our official logo and we design a set of variations to the hex image to allow for more personalized feel. Example a soldering iron for electronics, a brush for arts, a saw blade for wood shop, a flipper for vector, a laser for laser, a torch flame for metal shot, an end mill for machine shop. just make them all fit within the shape and try to make them all have the same feel.
So in single committee DMS branding you do the word mark with your committee’s Hex logo. With DMS general branding I would suggest we emphasize the word mark and possibly use the Hex logos as section dots where we describe the different tools and areas of DMS. Or add a set of the hex logos that would work for the event smaller under the logo, I’m thinking five at most and would play off the idea of a 5 star rating, Or possibly, make a Hex logo From the Hex logos and have it to the left of the word mark. But, this is very size speciffic and if the size of the logo had to be small I would suggest we just go back to the word mark.
Now for the feelings. It sucks doing critiques or modification as a designer. You get attached to your ideas and art. Also, without the comforting embrace of being able to charge for your work it makes it really easy to tell everyone to go screw themselves and that they can either take what I have made or nothing at all. So please be kind or we may loose the efforts of another designer.
I have a question, Do people really post stuff to the internet and expect every single soul who see what they have posted to like it?
If you put your design out there expect it to be praised and bashed, its part of the deal. I like both designs current and new.
However, its like any other thing here going through the proper channels and maybe discretely and slowly pushing what you want done instead of tossing it out to the wolves and expecting 100% approval.
Too many personalities around here to get 100% buy-in so to the designer kudos for the work, but folks are gonna argue this thing down to the nub, and by that time, people are not even gonna care anymore, and or somone else will come up with another design for folks to argue over.
I’m actually curious how long it took to get the 1st one approved…
LOL, limiting my responses to 2 per thread, before TROLL dude wakes up again.
The waters are getting a bit turbulent for me. I feel talk has gotten a bit more aggressive around the edges lately, I don’t like it. I think we need a face to face happy hour to talk over things person to person.
Nicole’s feelings concerning altering the logo of DMS (I’m an art teacher so just go with me here):
I feel like the attachment to the old has more to do with the attachment to recollecting about the good times and feelings about the “past” makerspace. The logo speaks to late night talks, successful execution of dreams and bonding friendships over some pretty difficult growth years. I’m going to state that I feel this is more an emotional pushback and not an aesthetic pushback. Feel free to disagree but that’s the vibe I’m feeling.
The kerning (space between the letters) on the past logo could be improved. Specifically between the p-a-c-e it’s not visually balanced. This is something that many may not see but it’s a part of the visual language of a logo. Thank god both are san-serif as I would have gone ballistic. The font of the second is easier to read from a distance and balances out with the width of the logo lines. The other is unbalance. Which you like is a matter of opinion - but for me, I prefer bolder letters.
Current trends in aesthetics/logos (from what I can tell) are going two ways - one way is clean and the other is fractured. With logos, in my opinion, clean is the way to go - both are clean but the new one is a visual quiz of sorts. It takes you a second to figure it out - what is it? OH it’s a wrench and an M. That second is a second people are paying attention- that second of someone thinking about your “brand” is invaluable.
Full disclosure Michael and I have been very close for years - before we both got involved in the manic energy of makerspace. Hands down, he is one of the most talented designer I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with. He has handled rebranding and branding several times with major companies. Both logos were designed by artists and what an honor to have that happen here.
Rebranding is commonplace - its part of the evolutionary cycle of businesses. (see below on legos visual journey)
I want everyone to imagine putting something on talk that they have made (be it a chair, something made of metal or a pinball restoration) and a reaction similar to this. It’s not supportive or productive. It’s counterproductive and makes it seem that efforts to modernize and improve makerspace will be met with a negative reaction. I just think everyone needs to take a second and consider how that effects the idea of personal efforts, volunteer time and energy here at DMS.
Important side note: (In my opinion) This public forum has started to eat it’s tail on several things and if not checked it will start to drastically effect the culture of makerspace that we all love. I believe it already has started to alter the vibe and I don’t like that one bit. Is it possible to give this little corner of the internet prozac or at least some whiskey and a rocking chair?
Storytime:
In a previous career I worked for a small manufacturer named ComCo systems, a division of Communications Conveyor Company. This latter tagline attached to almost every bit of company material was a reference to a bit of the past: before cheap phone systems, department stores of the early 20th century used pneumatic tube systems to send paper messages between departments and a backroom (the company’s main products were pneumatic tube systems for bank drive-throughs). The ComCo logo was stylized with the small O’s captured by the big C’s to suggest a carrier going through a tube. Rarely acknowledged by management was the growing irrelevance of pneumatic tube systems in the market: bank drive-throughs were on the decline, multiplex theaters were neither popping up like weeds nor were they handling much cash, and other markets like hospitals and industrial facilities were either using robots or going to more sophisticated competitors. But still the logo and tagline endured, despite the confusing throwback. The owners were stuck in an era that predated the 1968 founding of their company and failed to heed the implications behind the oft-asked question “so what’s a communications conveyor anyway?”. It is of small surprise that the company has struggled in more recent years.
While I too have some emotional attachment to the old logo (and I wasn’t even around for the old space), I can see the appeal of the new one.
I don’t think ‘in person’ get togethers will make any difference. Personally, I haven’t found this thread to be much more antagonistic then is natural when people disagree about something. And when you compound that with the fact that our members have less then perfect social skills it is easy for people to get their feelings hurt. But this is an area where people really do need to develop a thicker skin. The nature of a democratric organizatrion like ours is that debates will get heated when people are arguing their passion. Pleasant? No, but unfortunately a sign of a healthy organization such as ours.
I also have a couple of comments about your bullet points.
I disagree, and think you (and anyone else) should reconsider this belief. Personally, I just prefer the aesthetics of the old design. The ‘puzzle’ aspect of the new one is counter to the purpose of a logo in my mind. Instant recognizability. But more to the point, attributing a ‘reason’ to the oppositions preference for one aesthetic choice over another is problematic since such choices are largely preference. They are not arrived at by reason (on either side).
I know Michael has said the text of his new design is part of the logo, but I disagree. The symbol parts of logos are frequently used by themselves (see Pierces christmas tree ornaments) and the actual font used to render them in an organization like ours is likely to be different for everyone who uses it. I suspect that this was also the case with the ‘text’ part of the prior logo.
We are a business, but unlike most our mission is not to obtain new customers (members) like a normal business. Our purpose is to serve the needs of our current members. At least I would suspect that is why most of our 1,000+ members kick in their $50 each month. Given that ‘brand’ isn’t a particularly important consideration. Compound that with the fact that any one of our members is capable of producing a news article, magazine article, press release, etc… and use whatever ‘pretty stuff’ they want to illustrate ir, the idea that we can dictate from the top down what our ‘brand’ is seems doomed to failure.
I believe I received a much stronnger reactionb from Michael a few months back when I suggested we have a contest to create posters to remind people to clean up after themselves. I din’t take that personally, and I would suggest that he not do so here. I don’t believe these comments on these threads are personal. They are just people who disagree.
Just my $0.02 being tossed into the fray. I like the new logo and fell it does represent DMS in an appropriate way. I think most of the push back is the way people read their on beliefs into the discussion.
I will say that it has a wiff of ‘my way or the highway’ to the manner the new logo was proposed to go forward.
Thanks for all the contributions the current and new logo. We as a group should decide which to use.
My thoughts are how many people come here for the knowledge base the tooling and the comradery?
If it was to change would we really see a drop in membership, i mean would people really cancel? Would people just not join or come to this wonderful place over a logo?
If it was to stay the same, what would the impact be…
I’m thinking nill on both, however as stated in a prior post, maybe its just the shear idea of rebranding the entire organization thats causing the arguments. It costs money and folks volunteer time to make that happen and considering all of the other Makerspace goings on thats brewing, changing the branding probably just isnt on the priority list.
Let’s just change the logo to that Mr. Hankey looking thing @AlexRhodes carries around on his chain, is it D**K-Butt or something and call a truce…
If you look really hard at it, you can see the D the M and Crescent wrench on it…
As a frequent reader of the forum that is supposedly the clearinghouse for information for the Makerspace, I find myself coming here often and sometimes being surprised by decisions that were made and implemented without a heads up. It was discussed in some meeting, a line item was posted in some place, etc. And somehow I never see it.
In large orgs, sometimes that’s how things have to be to get it done. But to me it just seems to happen a lot.
I can’t be the most active member due to certain commitments, but I feel like it is difficult to stay well-informed of goings on unless I’m camping out.
