Glimpse: Plans for a mascot?

[creepertron95]

Brief Summary

I was wondering if there are plans for a mascot in Glimpse in the future. Like how GNU IMP has Wilber for its mascot.

More Details

I heard of an artist who designs mascots for open source projects (Krita, Kate) for free, Tyson Tan.

https://github.com/tysontan

http://tysontan.com/

[email protected]

Vote

Mark this comment :+1: in support of a mascot and :-1: for no mascot.

[TrechNex]

I believe @chaomodus put a wiki page here: https://wiki.glimpse-editor.org/index.php?title=Branding/Mascot

Contrary to my expressed viewpoint on that page, if there is a desire in our project/community for a mascot I'm fine with us having one. I view it as something that's low priority & optional though. :)

Also cc @Member1221 as they're in charge of the UI rewrite, so will probably have opinions on this too.

[creepertron95]

Should I call in @tysontan in the discussion as well?

[LunaTheFoxgirl]

I still want a cute arctic fox as mascot but like, i'm obsessed with foxes. So I might not be the best person to cc in to this discussion lol

As well, as long as we don't have the mascot being overused in the user interface (eg brushes, etc.) then I think it will be fine :)

(eg. Having it in the about page would be fine. But having it plastered everywhere would be bad)

[LunaTheFoxgirl]

Also @creepertron95 I know about Tyson, have contacted them in the past. Maybe it's a bit early to contact artists; though. :)

[tysontan]

Hi guys, thanks for letting me know! As soon as you decided to have a mascot, I'm open to provide the design, free of charge and under the project's free license.

It's true that not every application needs a mascot. However, Glimpse is a creativity app, it can afford to be relaxed. It's also a free and open source project, so having something nice and cute for its community to identify with is good for the morale.

I designed Kiki for Krita and renewed Konqi(s)'s design for KDE since version 5. From my experience, although the mascots are sometimes criticized as being "childish", people always tell us that they gave Krita and KDE a try because the mascots left them an impression. And the community generally love them as well.

But at the end of the day, if the project maintainer has a clear vision of they want and don't want, I won't argue about their decision.

[LunaTheFoxgirl]

@tysontan we don’t have a singular maintainer for Glimpse. The governance team consists of Bob moss, me, Chris and chaomodus.
We’ll bring this up for internal discussion soon.

[cristianovitorino]

@tysontan we don’t have a singular maintainer for Glimpse. The governance team consists of Bob moss, me, Chris and chaomodus.
We’ll bring this up for internal discussion soon.

You guys could also make a poll on social media or maybe an "emoji vote system" here, to see how the community feels about the issue, as said in the FAQs, not biding, but just to khow how people feel about the project having a mascot. Including the community as a whole on the decision process, if that is either viable or desireble by the maintainers of course.

My personal, subjective opinion on the subject:

-1 for a mascot.

About the mascot and it's style. It can be impactiful indeed, but sometimes for the wrong reasons, it targets a specific audience and can limits it's range. Something I noticed is that some people feel weirded out by this side of the culture, mainly because of the usually potraited little cartoony girls, sometimes with sexual innuendos, which can be quite disturbing for some people. A mascot in that particular style does introduces the risk of that kind of perception. Other times a mascot can be perceived as whacky as well, like the Linux mascot, and not taken seriously for a long time because of that whacky image it portrays. Sometimes it can be perceived as goofy or odd, etc. Take some food brandings for example, cartoony animals are a common theme, but it's usually target at a younger audience.

• Going mascot means more creative freedom, laid back, fun design and branding.
• No mascot, logo oriented branding means more broad, standard, professional approach to branding.

I think the answer lies in the direction the maintainers want the project to go:

1. Serious project, contemporary, aimed at a much broader audience, professionals and new people to image editing alike. Lean, professional UI/rebranding. A branding that is enterprise and school friendly. No weird name, no weird UI, no weird mascot. Just a beautiful logo, straightforward UI and great UX.

2. Stick to the culture. A more laid back rebranding, with a mascot, aiming more at people already familiar with Linux and Open Source culture and also a stronger focus on 2D artists in general, that are much more understanding of a mascot and might appreciate it more.

I personally dislike GIMP's name, branding and mascot. Horrible name in many languages with bad connotations associated with it, outdated UI, uncecessary and outdated mascot. Would be a bit weird for Glimpse to rebrand the logo, name and UI which suggests a more professional and serious take on open source image editing software and then adopt a cute mascot.

One of the reasons that brought me here for example, is the asbolutely amazing logo design by James Daniel. I think rebranding should follow somewhat in his footsteps. Again, this is just my two cents, mere opinion.

[TrechNex]

We've found in our experience that social media polls are of limited value because it's usually the most humorous result that wins rather than the best practical choice.

eg. Glimpse actually came second in such a poll behind "Bob FOSS Studio", which was considered witty because it matched my name (Bobby Moss) and that of a dead American painter (Bob Ross).

My feeling is that Glimpse Image Editor should err on the side of being more professional than geeking out on FLOSS culture (which most of the world is not going to buy into).

I am open to the idea of a mascot being a kind of "marketing companion" though, in much the same way Charlie Chaplain was to IBM in the '80s. But I am very wary of it being over-used.

[cristianovitorino]

We've found in our experience that social media polls are of limited value because it's usually the most humorous result that wins rather than the best practical choice.

eg. Glimpse actually came second in such a poll behind "Bob FOSS Studio", which was considered witty because it matched my name (Bobby Moss) and that of a dead American painter (Bob Ross).

Oh that's interesting. I never thought about that. Indeed that seems to be the case with social media polls. Do you think if there was no humorous option to choose from, only practical ones, that that would somewhat wield different or relevant results?

In any case, I've seen good results and decisions being made through Issue voting here on GitHub, but I'm not sure about the reach or relevance of such a thing, it's just a suggestion to think about.

[jaames]

Overall I'm in agreement with Cristiano here. Mascots can definitely be fun and often bring some much-needed personality into a project, but I'm not really convinced that having a mascot would fit with the vibe that we've been going for with Glimpse's branding.

I know mascots are a common FLOSS-ism, but in my opinion I think the way that FLOSS projects tend to market themselves actively hinders their reach and adoption among more mainstream audiences - especially professionals and educators. I see Glimpse as a chance to take a useful open-source tool and make it more appealing to a wider crowd of people, and I hope it eventually inspires other FLOSS projects to take design/branding a bit more seriously too.

There's other things we can try if we want to inject a bit of personality into Glimpse. Perhaps we could discuss ideas surrounding that sometime? :)

[creepertron95]

Well, should I close the issue then?

[LunaTheFoxgirl]

nah

[TrechNex]

Indeed, I'd suggest leaving it open for a while so people can make their views heard here. After 0.1.2 is released we could also make some time to discuss it on our public Matrix chat, which is where our project makes most of its decisions.

If we did choose to go with a mascot (not something I'm sold on), then I think we would treat it the same way as the logo (eg. work with an artist to develop and iterate on some ideas until we produce something cool)

[tysontan]

Personally, I think the idea of "not having a mascot" = more "professional" is very misleading. An app is "professional" when the app itself is capable enough to be widely recognized as one, not by some branding trickery that on the surface sounds logical but actually out of pure speculation. The fact of countless successful projects that exist with a mascot already proved my point.

I must also point out a mascot is mostly an "inside" thing, a "morale" thing, it doesn't have to be displayed on every face of a project. A workplace wants people to "take it seriously" so much to the point of cultural sterile that stripped of any fun factor, does not generally spark creativity, productivity, and above all, community spirit. Walt Disney Animation Studio used to give their animator wall-facing stainless desks arranged like prison cells, allowing almost no personal belongings to be left on it. Coincidentally, that was also the same time period when they hit the rock-bottom.

But you are entitled to you own opinion. There are different ways to see the world and get things done. It's always best to leave things to the like-minded persons. Judging by the atmosphere here, I will see my self out. Best luck to your future success.

[creepertron95]

@tysontan Best of luck to you and your awesome art as well.

[TrechNex]

Thank you for your time @tysontan. Also, I hope you are not discouraged. Our free software project is a little different from others in that decisions aren't made until they're made, and I don't just swoop in as a "benevolent dictator for life" and lay down the law. :)

Before we decide to go with a mascot it will be discussed on our public matrix channel. There anyone with an interest in the project can air their views, and those of us in the governance team (there are four of us) debate our views. The discussion then results in a decision for/against or a compromise.

I believe currently I'm outvoted in the governance team, as both @chaomodus and @Member1221 seem to be in favour, and @BrainBlasted has not declared a position. So odds are good that we will probably end up agreeing to a mascot of some description.

I understand our decision-making process can seem a little odd from the outside looking in, but we have found the benefits of collective decision-making are usually worth it. :)

[BrainBlasted]

My input: I'm on the side that a mascot isn't very professional, and that they're an outdated form of marketing. I don't think having a mascot would help us.

[jgamble]

For what my opinion is worth, I don't really see a value in a mascot. Assuming it doesn't go down the cute route, which has issues of its own, a mascot doesn't really serve a purpose unless it is used as a user stand-in for demonstrating how to use the program.

So unless there's a tutorial project also under development, I'm not seeing the need for a mascot.

[nitronova]

I would like to propose this compromise concept - A logo redesign, but with a minimalistic mascot built into it. For a software originating from the nineties, a nineties scholastic renaissance style could fit in with the aesthetics. The eye in the g can be used to replace the cartoony Wilbur face used repeatedly throughout the upstream program. I believe it keeps things professional and allows the software to present itself as a general purpose raster image manipulation software.