Open Stack

Hi Dan, 
I’m glad you asked! The value of creating a family of logos is in communicating that OpenStack projects work together. While the some of the designs of the existing mascots were great, none of them looked like they were part of the same family, and that sent a message to the market that the projects themselves didn’t necessarily work well together. 

Also, many teams told us they were happy to have design resources to make a logo—about three-quarters of projects didn’t have an existing logo, and many wanted one but didn’t have the ability to create their own. It’s nice to be able to support all projects in the big tent on an even footing.

All teams were encouraged to choose their own mascots; none was forced to select one, and projects with existing logos got the first right to keep their mascots, which we worked to blend together in a consistent style. We also allow projects with existing mascots to continue printing vintage swag, like stickers and T-shirts, out of respect for the great efforts of the developers who designed the originals. 

The new logos are used on official channels, like the website, and they help us better showcase the projects as a group and promote them. I’m working with a few projects that haven’t yet settled on a design to ensure we can at least reach a compromise, such as for TripleO in moving the design closer to the team’s original. (And on that note - I’m doing my best to answer each question individually, so I appreciate your patience.) 

In any design undertaking—and especially with this one, which touches 60+ project teams—there will be a lot of conflicting views. That’s OK, and we’ve done our best to listen to feedback and adapt to teams’ preferences. I assure you this isn’t an effort to “corporatize” our fabulous open source community, but rather to make it feel more cohesive and connected. 

I hope that when you see all of the logos together—and especially when you hear more about why teams chose these mascots—that you’ll enjoy them as much as I do. (Fun fact: Why did QA chose a little brown bat as its mascot? Because that creature eats its weight in bugs every day!) It’s been a real pleasure working with the community on this project. 

—Heidi Joy


> On Feb 15, 2017, at 12:52 PM, Dan Prince <dprince at redhat.com> wrote:
> 
> The fact that the foundation is involved in "streamlining" team logos
> just kind of makes me a bit sad I guess. I mean, what value is this
> really adding to the OpenStack projects?
> 
> Devs on many projects spend their own time on creating logos... that
> they like. I say let them be happy and have their own logos. No harm
> here I think. Move along and let us focus on the important things.
> 
> Dan