# The actual FreeBSD logo



## Kalero (Nov 2, 2015)

Hi! I open this thread to talk about the actual FreeBSD logo.

When I present FreeBSD operating system to my friends, all of them say the FreeBSD logo looks horrible. Personally, I think the same; the traditional Beastie logo looks nicer and friendlier than the actual one. What do you think about it?


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## UnixRocks (Nov 2, 2015)

Looks fine to me. I like Beastie too though.


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## Cthulhux (Nov 2, 2015)

I always use Beastie when talking about _any_ BSD. The new "reproducible" over-simplified logos are boring.


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## robroy (Nov 2, 2015)

Kalero, I agree.  My favorite two illustrations are the original John Lasseter drawing you're using for your avatar, and this one (I'm guessing this was also drawn by John Lasseter, but I'm not sure):


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## drhowarddrfine (Nov 2, 2015)

Agree. Long live Beastie!


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## Beastie7 (Nov 2, 2015)

I love the beastie bobble-head. Simple (and small), clean, and modern. Works perfectly with adverts, slides, brochures, etc.


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## Kalero (Nov 2, 2015)

Maybe it's a marketing question, but Linux community keeps the original Tux (the penguin) logo and it "works" for them. I think we should do the same, not because Linux community keeps the original logo, but to show a friendlier look.


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## drhowarddrfine (Nov 2, 2015)

The Beastie image is maintained by Marshall McKusick


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## wblock@ (Nov 2, 2015)

Line drawing logo != cartoon mascot.  Many Linux distributions have their own logos also.


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## Cthulhux (Nov 2, 2015)

So McKusick only owns the drawing but not the cartoon(s)?


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## wblock@ (Nov 2, 2015)

What?  No, the logo is the drawing:


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## Cthulhux (Nov 2, 2015)

Now that's sad.


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## Beastie7 (Nov 2, 2015)

That's awesome!


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## hitest (Nov 3, 2015)

wblock@ said:


> What?  No, the logo is the drawing:



I like this and Beastie.


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## ANOKNUSA (Nov 3, 2015)

Kalero said:


> Maybe it's a merchandising question, but ... I think we should do the same ... to show a friendlier look.


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## jrm@ (Nov 3, 2015)

I've heard people refer to the old one as "Beastie" and the new one as "the orb".  That makes them easy to distinguish.

I'm a little nostalgic for Beastie, so I add loader_logo="beastie" to /boot/loader.conf.  Also, I guess everyone has seen the image of Beastie performing an indecent act on Tux.  The orb can't do that.


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## Carpetsmoker (Nov 3, 2015)

Back when the "new" logo was being proposed, there were some people claiming it looked exactly like a sex toy, complete with images.

I've never been able to look at the logo and not think of that ...


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## Beastie7 (Nov 3, 2015)

You know what *really* needs a redesign? The FreeBSD website.


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## PacketMan (Nov 3, 2015)

Look at the image I am using for my avatar. Now remove the horns. Maybe with a little more touch up it would look like a sun/star with solar flares coming from it.  IMHO that would make a cool new 'next generation' logo.  But I am not saying that I think the current artwork needs to be replaced.


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## usdmatt (Nov 3, 2015)

I'm sure there has been posts previously from people strongly against the Beastie drawing due to the demon reference, regardless of how silly it seems to most people (including me). The Orb has horns as well of course but is at least a bit more abstracted.

Yes Linux has Tux, but every real Linux distribution has professional (or at least slightly more professional) logos.

Some people don't like the simplified style of modern logos, but as mentioned by Beastie7, it needs to work well in all sorts of situations, including those where colour or resolution are in short supply. In some situations, like the corner of a document/flyer, or an application icon I think the Orb would look fine, even it it's just the outline without the 3d effect, but the Beastie drawing would just look childish (IMHO).



> Maybe with a little more touch up it would look like a sun/star with solar flares coming from it. IMHO that would make a cool new 'next generation' logo


Sounds like something I would of thought was cool on a website in the 90's.



> You know what *really* needs a redesign? The FreeBSD website.


Yeah I've thought that for a while. There's a mention in the latest quarterly update that some changes have been made to reduce space waste. I can see why they've done it but I think it's made it slightly awkward looking (especially the front page). They do mention redesign as an option, but say "that is a much more complex and ambitious project than it might seem"


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## roddierod (Nov 3, 2015)

I've always thought the new orb logo, looks like the designer was a Pepsi drinker and took the Pepsi logo, put on a red overlay and added horns. Don't like it, personally.


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## usdmatt (Nov 3, 2015)

Probably did. A lot of logos seem to be heavily based on someone elses.
I personally think the new iXsystems logo looks exactly like the HP logo, squashed into an oval a little bit, with "HP" replaced by "iX". It's even a near identical blue.

I don't think the Orb is perfect, but I do think simple logos are far more usable. I really don't think the Beastie can be used as one.


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## Kalero (Nov 3, 2015)

Beastie7 said:


> You know what *really* needs a redesign? The FreeBSD website.



I think FreeBSD official website needs to be more updated, but not for be redesigned and remove the Beastie! Keep it there!


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## freethread (Nov 3, 2015)

usdmatt said:


> ...but the Beastie drawing would just look childish (IMHO).



I prefer the new one, but I do not care much. If I have to put a freebsdFreeBSD logo on a website (or a program icon), I use the new one, it's simple, it's circular (fit everywhere), most of times I use the 'flat' one (no 3D and 1 color: most of time red, but in many cases light or dim gray or black). Whatever the logo looks like doesn't matter to me, it should define the FreeBSD OS at first look. Even better there's no need to look at it, your subconscious see it and inform you.

I agree with usdmatt, anyways.


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## Kalero (Nov 3, 2015)

usdmatt said:


> Yes Linux has Tux, but every real Linux distribution has professional (or at least slightly more professional) logos.
> 
> Some people don't like the simplified style of modern logos, but as mentioned by Beastie7, it needs to work well in all sorts of situations, including those where colour or resolution are in short supply. In some situations, like the corner of a document/flyer, or an application icon I think the Orb would look fine, even it it's just the outline without the 3d effect, but the Beastie drawing would just look childish (IMHO).



I agree with the argument that logo needs to be something easy to include in many situations (documents, etc.), but also I think a brand's logo should be something that people feel identified with. And I think the orb logo is too unsightly, a failed attempt to "modernize" the traditional mascot. It's true that, while Linux keeps the Tux (the penguin) logo, most distributions use their own logo but, in many cases, they just use stylized letters showing the distribution's name or, in other distributions that use a stylized mascot, such as SuSE's chameleon, the mascot looks much more friendly, not like the orb logo that, IMHO, looks impersonal, boring and unsightly (what is the sense of an faceless orb with horns?). I think the FreeBSD stylized letters "work" for the purpose of having a logo easy to use for many situations (or maybe with something more symbolic like... a drawing of a fork?), but the logo/mascot of FreeBSD must be something that people feel identified with, and I think the traditional Beastie is the perfect one, like Tux in the Linux world.


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## drhowarddrfine (Nov 3, 2015)

PacketMan said:


> Look at the image I am using for my avatar.


I do like that idea but the question would always be asked as to how that identified FreeBSD. Then the history behind it would have to be explained.

If there was any money behind it, I would re-do the whole site, as others have mentioned. At the same time, I feel guilty for mentioning money.


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## junovitch@ (Nov 4, 2015)

Beastie7 said:


> You know what *really* needs a redesign? The FreeBSD website.


There is this: https://reviews.FreeBSD.org/D3934

There's quite a large discussion there as well as on the mailing list but the end result of this is available at http://www.freesbd.org/


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## cpm@ (Nov 4, 2015)

It looks pretty fine! I hope to see soon online the new FreeBSD Project website.


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## junovitch@ (Nov 4, 2015)

cpm said:


> It looks pretty fine! I hope to see soon online the new FreeBSD Project website.


It does look nice but there's quite the backstory behind it and plenty of dependencies to work out before any official changes happen.


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## cpm@ (Nov 4, 2015)

junovitch@ said:


> It does look nice but there's quite the backstory behind it and plenty of dependencies to work out before any official changes happen.


I don't doubt. Much work remains to be done before it is fully operational the new website.

Anyway, kudos to the web designer


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## wblock@ (Nov 4, 2015)

Please start a new topic if you want to talk about that.


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## cpm@ (Nov 4, 2015)

wblock@ said:


> Please start a new topic if you want to talk about that.



wblock@,

Yes, it would be better in this case.


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## Kalero (Nov 5, 2015)

TeamBlackFox said:


> Who says we have to have a logo like Linux? We really don't, plus Tux is the symbol for the Linux kernel versus any distro - as one could see. There is no equivalent model for BSD.
> 
> Personally, though, I rather like these designs:
> 
> ...



I didn't say exactly that. If you read well my post, you'll probably understand it. Talking about a marketing strategy, I said we should have a friendlier logo, like Linux. But I could give more examples: look at OpenBSD's, DragonFly BSD's, Darwin's (OS X) or SuSE's logos; they look really nice, they are animals and even someone could make plushies for have them sitting on your desktop and sell them at conventions.

Now, don't say I said a logo should be an animal! I've wanted to say the logo should be something more personal, something that people feel identified with. Obviously, we should have something related to daemons because our history but, IMHO, it should be something more personal than a faceless orb with horns. Could anyone imagine a faceless orb with a hat for the Red Hat's logo?


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## freethread (Nov 5, 2015)

Kalero said:


> I didn't say exactly that. If you read well my post, you'll probably understand it. Talking about a marketing strategy, I said we should have a friendlier logo, like Linux. But I could give more examples: look at OpenBSD, DragonFly BSD, Darwin (OS X) or SuSE logos; they look really nice, they are animals and even someone could make plushies for have them sitting on your desktop and sell them at conventions.
> 
> Now, don't say I said a logo should be an animal! I've wanted to say the logo should be something more personal, something that people feel identified with. Obviously, we should have something related to daemons because our history, but IMHO, it should be something more personal than a faceless orb with horns. Imagine a faceless orb with a hat for the Red Hat logo!



So, you really hate the BSD logo. As far as I know, an animal should be an animal. Don't ask me if I like them.


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## Deleted member 9563 (Nov 6, 2015)

usdmatt said:


> I don't think the Orb is perfect, but I do think simple logos are far more usable. I really don't think the Beastie can be used as one.



I agree, Beastie can't be used as a logo. And the Orb is indeed not perfect since it has colour shading which makes it a poor choice.

What's wrong with getting a professional designer to do it? I know corporations pay a lot of money for this kind of service, but surely for a non-profit situation such as this some commercial designer would cut us a deal or even do the work for free.


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## Beastie7 (Nov 6, 2015)

The Orb is perfect. If it gets changed, I'll rage quit.


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## Kalero (Nov 6, 2015)

TeamBlackFox said:


> [...]If you don't like the logo, design one of your own and show it off, who knows what will happen.



I think something like this one would be much better. It's symbolic, simple (in 2-D and without shadings, so it would solve the orb problems) and nice to feel identified with. Then, putting "FreeBSD" letters next to it, we would have a logo for using it in most situations (documents, etc.).


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## wblock@ (Nov 6, 2015)

There are multiple versions of the logo, including black and white line drawings: https://www.freebsd.org/logo.html


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## drhowarddrfine (Nov 6, 2015)

I passed this onto my son, who does all the artwork for his theatre company's ads and posters, to see if he might want to make a contribution or suggestion. Like my attempt at the web site, we'll have to see if he has the time but he did ask me for more info.


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## Kalero (Dec 5, 2015)

TeamBlackFox said:


> If you don't like the logo, design one of your own and show it off, who knows what will happen.



This is also a nice example, in my opinion.


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## PacketMan (Dec 17, 2015)

I grabbed an image off the internet. Can someone photoshop this?  (sorry got no photoshop skills myself). Do some googling and you should be able to find and set a pair of solar flares on the top.  Move those bright spots around to make the word FreeBSD.    More and more I think this would make a great next generation FreeBSD marketing logo.


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## DaemonKing (Dec 29, 2015)

I'm actually quite fond of the orb logo. It's simple, clean, and modern. The horns are a distinctive feature that echos the old Beastie logo without looking childish. Overall, the new logo looks much more professional.

I take it that critics of the current logo are against its abstract and simplified look, which, as someone has already pointed out, is actually a positive for use in marketing materials, just like how Disney has its silhouette mouse head that represents Mickey. I would suggest that we keep the current logo, as it just works too well for a lot of purposes.

I would, however, like to see an updated look to Beastie. He's never looked all that cute to me. Understandably, it's kind of hard to make a mascot look cute and friendly when it's got horns, a pointed tail, and a trident in his hand. Perhaps someone can give that a go?


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## Deleted member 9563 (Dec 29, 2015)

DaemonKing said:


> I take it that critics of the current logo are against its abstract and simplified look,



Abstract is good (in fact best), but it is not at all a simplified look. It is shaded and not decisive. Whether or not that is perceived as professional is probably a generational thing.


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## DaemonKing (Dec 30, 2015)

OJ said:


> Abstract is good (in fact best), but it is not at all a simplified look. It is shaded and not decisive. Whether or not that is perceived as professional is probably a generational thing.


As wblock@ said earlier in this thread:


wblock@ said:


> There are multiple versions of the logo, including black and white line drawings: https://www.freebsd.org/logo.html


The line and silhouette versions of the current logo are available when needed for an even simpler look without any shading.


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