A New Logo for Brrism

The great thing about the web is that it makes everything so visual and exciting. The downside, of course, is that everything that is not visual and exciting is doomed to be lost in the background noise.

Back in the summer, when I wasn't even sure if Brrism would get off the ground, I realized that if it did not have a graphical identity it would also get lost and so, armed with a Creative Commons image, an open source graphical editor (the GIMP) and approximately 30 minutes of spare time I came up with the Brrism “prism” logo. This logo featured on Brrism's Twitter account, the EventBrite events pages, the blog, etc etc. The logo has done its job. But the time has come to put the "dark side of the moon" logo out to pasture and to come up with something a bit more professional.

Karl Louden of MakeDesignEnjoy designs logos for a living and when he offered his services to Brrism free of charge I gratefully accepted. Karl facilitated some logo brainstorming at the last Brrism meeting and came up with the design you see on this page.

I like it for a number of reasons:

• It’s simple and easily recognizable
• The shape works at large and small sizes (right down to favicon size).
• The shape is distinctive enough to be used in different colours and still retain the Brrism "essence".
• It makes Brrism look friendly, human and fun. (Come to a meeting and you'll realise that's what we're about.)
• The shape of the b looks like a hand with the index finger extended or a thumbs up sign. Both of which have positive connotations.
• It’s memorable
• All of the people that I’ve showed it to so far have liked it.
• Most importantly, it draws attention to the double r in Brrism. (The double R is necessary for uniqueness - URL & IDs - and for SEO. As well as reflecting Bristol's Brrizzle burr.)

I've been involved with logo design in the past and I know what a sensitive, subjective subject it can be. Past experience has shown me that you can't please everyone all the time and also that, sometimes, logos can attract initial skepticism only to later grow on people. But this is very much a collective community and so I ask: What do Brrismers think of it?

Please let’s have a discussion on twitter (hashtag: #brrismlogo), the wiki, LinkedIn group, or this blog (leave comments below). Negative comments are, of course, welcome - so long as they are constructive. If you don't like the logo, please say why.

We will, of course, be able to discuss it face to face when we meet again (the next Brrism meeting is scheduled for the 20^th January). Over to you, Brrismers...