Re: [GNUnet-developers] website and logo rework

[hyazinthe]

Hello,

seeing the logo, this network forming the silouette of a gnu, sparked 
excitement in me.
This is an improvement to the current logo. And it motivated me to
play a little bit around with its relationship to added writing. Here's the 
result:
https://abload.de/img/gnunetlogo-sketchesk5u5g.png

My initial impulse to start this was, that I didn't like how the writing was 
designed in relationship to the logo: The serifs made the writing appear so 
antiquated. And that's exactly not what the project needs. The project needs 
refreshment. A timeless, modern, slick look, a look mirroring what the GNUnet 
is: Hot shit. Additionally it was inappropriate: Serifs have a function. They 
make it easier to read huge masses of text. That's why books, especially 
romans, are using typos with serifs.
But what we have here is not a book. It's an image with maybe 1 word under it. 
So, no need for applying this function.
Additionally, when the logo is very small, the serifs of the writing below the 
logo are just unnecessary shape vanishing or blurring in the eye of the 
beholder.
Second point:  A big competition for attention arises between the logo and the 
writing.
The gnu silouette form of the logo and the horizontal form of the writing are 
next to each other like 2 foreign objects. They have nothing to do with each 
other. They do nothing with each other. They are ignoring each other.
Additionally, the difference between the white and the colors of the logo 
including the black background made the writing so loud.

Well, and with this starting point, I've made a 1st variation:
Simply changing typo: Switching over to using typo's variation without serifs - 
GNU FreeFont, which is licensed with GPLv3orlater by itself - 
https://www.gnu.org/software/freefont/index.html . This aspect has it's charme, 
it additionally mirrors the spirit of the GNUnet. And I kind of liked the 
outcome. It improved some of the mentioned aspects. But not all. It was still 
loud.

So I've made variations 2 and 3, both aiming at dimming the writing down, 
harmonizing image and writing more. It was kind of nice. Both prefereable to 
variation 1, if you ask me, but I quickly went over to something I was more 
excited about: Doing a variation 4, a variation based on 2 intuitive sketches 
I've made right away after reading this thread: Transforming the horizontal 
form of the writing into a T-form, which is like the space form of the gnu 
silouette form of the logo, and putting the writing into the logo.
The charme of it was that it mirrors the image in its double meaning and 
additionally is efficient by saving a letter without losing completeness.
It was surprising to me, that the outcome was a typical example of 'nice in the 
head, but not so nice in real life'. The T-space in the logo is relatively 
small, so you have to scale down the size of the writing. And that to a degree 
making the outcome too small and puzzle like for practice.

This complete outcome up to this point lead me to variation 5, which is my 
final logo recommendation: Just use the image, and that's it. Let it speak for 
itself, because it can. Leave the writing under it away.
Not only is that the best solution to the mentioned points, it's also something 
which can be pulled thanks to 2 things: Firstly, how self-explanatory the logo 
as such is, and secondly, the environment in which the logo is faced in general.
The name of the GNUnet project consists of 2 parts: GNU and net.
Both motives are perfectly blended in the logo. You have a network, and this 
forms the silouette of a gnu. You don't need prior knowledge to understand it. 
You don't need to speak a certain language to understand it. It's acultural, 
it's self-explanatory.
And it shows what the project does: Networking. But you do need prior knowledge 
to get what that gnu is all about. But the same applies to the writing 
'GNUnet': You can have it written down letter by letter, but if people don't 
know that GNU stands for the free software movement and what's that all about, 
then they don't understand the writing, either. So, no point of difference 
regarding this aspect between image and writing.
In addition to that, in what context, in what environment, the logo appears 
most of the time? We look at a screen, seeing it in logical connection and 
close to something, which contains the writing 'GNU'. Maybe it's the URL in the 
address bar, or the hashtag of a social media message, or a keyword within a 
text the GNUnet website or gnu.org.

Feedback regarding the website:
The website has to get more to the point, and the design has to support that by 
how it divides spaces and shapes them with colors, images, and writings. If you 
want to place 5 bullet points, you better take the whole white space, and 
devide it into 5 parts, each designed differently custom made, individual and 
tasty just for that one bullet point they are supposed to introduce.
Additionally, you want to keep up interest of the audience through the whole 
site, instead of welcoming them with a structure, saying that 67% of the 
website is not of interest for them and that they're better off with focusing 
their attention to this one third, which is targeted specifically to them. The 
content, the bullet points, have to be in the center of attention, not a meta 
structure sorting the audience into 3 different groups.
Of course, certain aspects of the GNUnet are more attractive to a certain group 
than others, but there are ways to generalize those points to such a degree, 
that they're also better accessible to other groups. At least to such a degree 
that they understand the value of those points.
A very good reference for all of this is this website: https://www.zeronet.io/en
The only problem with that is that it's kind of like a visiting card.
Another reference, which is good, is this website: https://freifunk.net/en/
Additionally, what the second website makes better than the first reference, is 
that it's not just a visiting card. It strongly interacts with the audience. It 
gives impulse to click on videos, zoom into maps dynamically displaying what's 
going on in the free wireless network that this project Freifunk is all about.

One last word to the topic 'website text':
'ethical internet' ? Good intentions, but too vague. At the bottom GNUnet has 2 
values:
empathy and emancipation - it embodies empathy to help other people, and it 
embodies emancipation by facilitating freedom/liberty, it embodies emancipation 
to help other people living their lives in freedom. If values are put into the 
center of attention, the best thing one can do to be understood and help the 
values as such is naming them explicitely and concretely.
I think it's a very good idea to mention the values of the GNUnet, because it 
helps people without technical understanding to understand what drives the 
GNUnet. But then at least additionally some technical key features, bullet 
points, should be dropped: Things like 'distributed', 'anonymous P2P', 
'Filesharing', 'creating a anonymous and distributed replacement for the old 
insecure Internet' - it's just something early adopters expect to be faced 
with, are looking for, and get very attentive and attracted to.
It's okay, if these drops are pretty bold and ambitious, because they make 
clear what the project strives for to be or become, and that attracts people 
who want the same, building up momentum into the desired direction of the 
project.


Greetings,
Bastian Schmidt


Le ven. 26 janv. 2018 à 1:07, amirouche <address@hidden> a écrit :

    Héllo,


    I got into creating a new logo for gnunet and work on the new gnunet 
website.


    I did not study a lot the current website and based the mockup on what is in

    the www.git repository @ https://gnunet.org/git/www.git/

    My first impression is that the learning curve is rather steep, because 
it's start in the first paragraph with various acronyms that I don't know 
myself.


    The introduction goes into deteails of what and how Internet is broken. 
Starting up with the Internet is broken is not very positive and most likely

    people coming to the website already know that.

    We should first deliver a short explanation of the guiding principles of 
the gnunet stack (or framework?). I think about: ethical, energy efficient, 
secure

    and anonymous. Maybe that must be the headline. Maybe:

     ethical Internet

    is enough.

    Let's be creative, the current headline seems like a buzz word bingo
    parade:

    Decentralized, Secure, Privacy-preserving, Distributed Application Framework


    ipfs use the following:

     IPFS is the distributed web.

    That is a bit strong and surf on the _web_ frenzy. A misleading statement.

    Serving static files over the network is an old trick.

    I think we should focus on delivring a short explanation for three kinds of

    potentially interested users.

    - end users: What are gnunet-based applications? What are the advantages of 
using gnunet compared to other approaches in particular the blockchain, ipfs 
and bittorrent (e.g. gnunet offers the possibility to stay anonymous which 
avoids the need to use vpn (which is not really anonymous) and that

     gnunet offers better performance than tor (which has known issues)).

     AFAIK this section will be empty without gnunet-gtk and gnu taler.

    - developpers: What are the advantages of using gnunet? What are the 
distinctive features of gnunet? What are the available bindings? What is their 
status? Explain in layman terms that most the regular network stack is replaced

     by a secure version. Explai from top to bottom (I think it's easier

    to understand but I am just a webdev) what are the different services.


    - researcher: explain that gnunet is based on several research papers and

     that it was published in various places, link to the bibliography.

    How someone should cite gnunet if they use it in their work? bibtex?

    I replaced the term 'stack' with 'framework' in the headline, is it ok?


    logos and mockup at https://imgur.com/a/ZOjNU

    I attached the svg source.

    WDYT?