Mark Boulton Design

First off.. your comment form is pretty hard to use, I had to really think and look where to click, the input fields are sort of invisible. And also the flow is..weird.. first give details, then some settings, then a submit button and then lastly an “invisible” box to type my comment in. After which I have to go back up again to submit my comment.

About your post: what striked me in the Drupal letters is that almost all of them(except the L) were round or had round parts. Which for me correlates to the fluidity/flexibility of Drupal itself. Another thing I thought of was that, as they say, water eventually erodes even the hardest stone, could translate to: Drupal finds a way through the toughest challenges, one trickle at a time.

Just some mind blurbs, have a nice day!

"I’m not keeping the results of this to myself, oh no.”

OK, where’s the stuff? Can we take a look at it? You write a post in which you announce that you are going to ask feedback from the community - what’s the point? You have every right to blog about design in general or your work methods inparticular, but from the Drupal point of view, this post contains zero information. Why is it on Drupal Planet?

It’s druplicon, not drupalicon.

This is the worst comment form I’ve ever used in my life. Why is the Post comment button above the textfield? Why is there no preview? Textfields with no borders?? And I can barely read what I’m typing.

I’m glad we’re doing a wordmark. Hopefully, over time it will replace that ghastly blue druplicon thing.  As you might guess, I’m not as fond of it as some people.

"This post is categorised as planetdrupal and should be picked up “

Yes, that’s exactly what I’m complaining about. Can I suggest you read my comment again? The purpose of Drupal planet is to keep people up to date about recent development in the ecosystem. It’s the equivalent of a news wire service.

“Im starting by looking at the letterforms. Finding common shapes within them, how the letters d, r, u, p, a, l relate to one another. I’m looking at the space between the letters.”

This is not news, please don’t put it on Drupal Planet. People who are interested in your thought processes, work methods or design philosophy can always sign up to your blog feed.

I don’t mean to be disrespectful, in fact I’m quite happy that d.org is undergoing a redesign and that you were chosen for the job.  But if everyone who’s on Drupal Planet starts pushing in their semi-private philosophizing, the feed will become unusable.

@Mark Boulton: It’s highly interesting to follow your work, and I hope you’ll continue to keep us posted in the future.

Planet Drupal aggregates broadly appealing, Drupal-related blog posts pertaining to the community at large (code, advocacy, marketing, infrastructure etc.)

Sounds to me like this post is perfectly appropriate, and in my opinion, much more interesting than the majority of stuff I see there.

Good design and usability are going to be vital to Drupal’s future, and I am extremely excited about Mark’s involvement, I just hope the “community” doesn’t get in the way of things (see above comments).

Looking forward to a nicer drupal blob, wordmark, homepage, and maybe if you have time, garland.

Speaking as a Planet reader and contributor, I think this post qualifies as reasonable content for the feed. It’s about Drupal, which is more than can be said for some posts that make it to Planet

BTW, Anyone interested in what ends up on Planet should take a look at this post and leave some feedback:

http://groups.drupal.org/node/14804

PS: The font on this comment form is really tiny. It’s almost impossible to tell if I’ve put a space between some words. :(

Hm. Don’t really understand what annoyedbunny is so annoyed about.

I personally really appreciate this post, and the other posts that you guys have been doing throughout the Drupal.org redesign process, which make the process as transparent as possible. I speak in the language of ones and zeroes, so had never heard of things like “wordmark” and “logotype” before. While this might be “duh” stuff to some people, it’s really valuable for providing context, from where I sit. And I especially value your sharing of what goes on “in your head” as you approach a problem like this.

Keep up the awesome work!

Aahhh, comment form is much better now, thanks

I think putting posts like this in Planet Drupal is an excellent way to involve the willing part of the Drupal Community with the rebranding process. Rebranding is something that’s important for the whole community, as I see it.

OK, let’s look at what’s on Planet Drupal right now:

1. Mark Boulton started to think about the letters D r u p a l. (No, he doesn’t yet has anything to show us. There’s nothing to comment on. He’s just started to think about the letter D.)

2. Drupal training video course is available, free access for 24 hrs.

3. Performance and scalability patches availble for download. If you have a busy site to manage, you may want to look at them.

4.  Ohio Textbook Portal: large public site relaunched on Drupal. Detailed case study.

5. Upcoming event: DrupalCamp Paris.

6.  DrupalCamp LA last minute information.

7.  Jeff Eaton relaunching his blog. He’s giving a detailed case study of the relaunch, announces a patch to a popular module, recommends a good VPS hosting provider, etc.

8. Sponsorship deal announced: Linux Journal supports Do It With Drupal.

9. Well-known Drupal developer Stella Power is starting her own company, looking for assignments.

10.  Upcoming event: Delhi meetup

11.  Article: tips on how to find Drupal jobs.

12. Google Earth integration:  KML and Locations modules now work together.

What’s the difference between item No. 1 and the rest? All the other 11 items contained information that was useful or actionable in some way.  If you go to the Delhi meetup, you’re glad they posted that information. If you want to hire a developer, you might want to contact Ms. P. You might want to try the patches that are available for download, read the case studies, etc.  etc.

In your post, besides giving us a definition of the word “wordmark” (I happened to know what it means, just as I know what a “logo” is, etc.), the information content was practically zero. There is nothing to look at, to download, to comment on, to improve on, and no way to participate other than “expressing support” and telling you how brilliant you are.

I’m not saying that what you are saying is worthless, I just think Drupal Planet is not the right place for it. A case study of a major element of the redesign is very much a ‘NEWS’ item and it should be announced on Drupal Planet.  But when you say, “I started thinking about the letted D—but I’m not telling you what I think, I’m just telling you that I started to think”—this is complete waste of my time.

Apparently, other people enjoyed your post and got something out of it. So take this for what it is - one opinion. Quite a few people are abusing Drupal Planet, so I’m just venting my frustration that has pent-up over a longer period of time.

I forcefully disagree with annoyedbunny about the usefulness of this post. It provides some much-needed context for the process to come, so that when drafts and sketches begin appearing, we know where Mark and his team are coming from, where their minds are at, what their thought processes are. I actually thought this post was invaluable, and I hope Mark and his team continue to share their thoughts with us as often as possible.

@Mark - Dude, take it easy on the Druplicon! (No idea where the ‘a’ went, btw)

It’s quirky, but that’s its most lovable quality, I find. I’m not a Fan, but no-one wants to see it bashed, per se.

The bit of that logo that makes it work is the eyes. If you lose the eyes, you lost the crowd, I reckon. A classic illustration of that point would be this - everyone knows that’s a Drupal reference.

Expecting big things but I’m confident we won’t be disappointed. You and Leisa are already proving to be more than worthy of the task. Best of luck.

Nik

Trying to get back at the topic at hand.  This post along with the future posts will allow us to go back and see what went through the design of the drupal wordmark.  It should be interesting to see how the spacing between letters and the comment about rounded letters affect the next designs.

@Mark - but you *are* “tweaking” him, right...?

Thanks for linking your post on Drupal Planet, which it belongs.

I agree, it’s time to evolve the Drupal trademark to a powerful wordmark without the need to always add the famous Drupal logo (ie the druplicon). I’m eager to see your proposals.

However, later, after the new wordmark being done and accepted, we might need to redo the druplicon for some usage, like using only the druplicon on the back of t-shirts. But doing so, the druplicon should be simplified to the extreme. No more gradients, use a single color, and why not, use only the eyes. Here I agree with NikLP.

While 90% of the time the new Drupal workdmark only would be used, a small 10% might use the simplified druplicon. And, why not reserve the druplicon for convention?

It will be interesting to see what will come out of all this.

@Mark:  I find it a bit ironic that this post talks about your love of typography, yet personally I find that the fonts and styles you use here make reading the post and comments very difficult.  In general I think the font is 1 or 2 sizes too small to comfortably read.  In addition, the italicized areas are even more difficult to read.  Also, the commenter’s name runs into the date of the comment.  This is true in FF2, FF3, and Safari.  Finally, your blockquote style doesn’t seem to distinguish the contents much from other nearby text, other than increasing the bottom margin slightly.

Sorry for being picky here, but when I read a post about typography and find the styles used on the site to be difficult to read, it just doesn’t seem right.

I wanted to leave a comment on your ‘Initial wordmark designs’ post thanking you for opening up a feedback process for the Drupal community, and commending you on keeping all the posts, even the ones not in favour of the design.

It seems comments have been switched off for that post though - is it a technical problem or was there a decision to not accept any further feedback?

I want to echo what webchick said: it’s useful to see your design and thought process explained. I’m interested in design but have only competent skills at this point. Posts like this are an opportunity for me to learn from someone with skill, talent, and experience.