[Ocaml-biz] logos now, mascots later

[Brandon J. Van Every]

Tony Edgin:
>
> This is the death blow to a red-haired camel as a mascot.
> Any strongly
> negative feelings is bad for a mascot or logo.
>
> We should avoid any national or racial identities for a mascot.

I agree.

I don't think we should devote our energies to mascots right now.  It is
only important to techies, and not to educators or businesspeople.  A
*logo*, on the other hand, matters to everybody.  Let's say we succeeded
at creating both a logo and a mascot right now.  We need to secure the
buy-in of the OCaml community.  Do we really want to split their
attention between 2 items right now?  No, I think we want them to focus
on a logo.  A logo that pleases businesspeople, educators, *and*
techies, ideally speaking.

Once we've shepherded a logo to some kind of quasi-successful status, we
could either have a contest for a mascot, or maybe someone will hit upon
an inspired design for a mascot.  We will certainly know a lot more
about the marketing lay of the land at that point.

We don't want to do a mascot first, because that risks the mascot
becoming the logo.  I don't want some cute plush toy camel for OCaml's
logo, like the penguin ended up being for Linux.  It's not that I don't
like the penguin, I do, but I know it is poor marketing to
businesspeople.


Cheers,                     www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every           Seattle, WA

"The pioneer is the one with the arrows in his back."
                          - anonymous entrepreneur