Wikijunior project logo

The selection process for the Wikijunior logo is underway at Wikijunior/Logo.

Older discussion[edit]

How about a few children, culturally diverse, standing on the wikimedia logo, holding hands or something, sort of like the WikiMedia logo being a globe? Just a thought.

What about two kids, a boy and a girl, holding the wikimedia logo between them? Theresa knott 18:54, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I'd rather see a whole bunch of kids from multiple parts of the world holding up the logo, but I'm not sure if that would be impossible to draw. Anthony DiPierro 13:33, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Personally, I think the boy and girl is quite charming, engaging and speaks to visual learners. As long as the skin color of the boy and girl is significantly different (and eye colors, too), I think you have a winning logo. (Just one Manhattan creative directors opinion)

That's a good idea. It would be difficult to show them all holding the logo but they could all be standing by it. With some perhaps climbing on it. Theresa knott 14:04, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Actually thinking about it more, we could merge the UENSCO logo and the wikimedia logo (provided that was ok to do legally) -See the diagram. Then we could perhaps have children sitting on the steps, holding up the wikimedia logo or climbing on the roof. Theresa knott 14:16, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

That appeals to me a great deal... combine the UNESCO and Wikimedia logos, together with a variety of children. Even if we get permission to incorporate the UNESCO logo we will probably need a non-UNESCO variant someday, and this could be the centre of the full logo, leaving out the top and bottom but leaving in the Wikimedia logo and the children. Andrewa 14:26, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I suggest we wait for the title to be decided, as that will help guide us towards the most meaningful logo. Also, I think a "wordmark" might be better than a "logo". Horizontal wordmarks are the easiest to fit onto and adjust for any cover we need. The children idea is a great idea to illustrate the first cover; it's too complicated to be considered as a logo. Also, I don't think the Wikimedia logo is that appropriate. Does a kid really care about their book series/magazine's publisher? Not overly. Finally, think black and white. As boring as it sounds, any good logo works that way. Colour can be added later, once the inital design is strong. -- user:zanimum

Im not quite sure how to do it, but how about the wikimedia logo except rather than dull colours in perfect geometrical shapes, really bright colours and kinda scribbled in with a crayon sort of effect. I'll try and do a mockup (if i get time) of what i mean with some crayons and scan it in. ~~Btw, what kinda age group are we looking at here?~~ Update: i should always have a better look round b4 i ask stupid questions, apparently its 7-12 yr olds. The bellman 04:27, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

That idea sounds cool! Theresa knott 08:08, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I like it, except I think it wouldn't appeal too much to the 10-12 age group. Still, I think it's the best suggestion so far - why not the wikimedia logo drawn in crayon. If I have time and can get my scanner working, I'll try it. Ludraman 16:42, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Achhh!! A crayon? A we trying to loose them before they go past the cover? No one of that age really uses crayons, let alone admits it, or acts proud of it. -- user:zanimum

i think i probably agree with you (note that i didnt know what age group we were aiming at, when i suggested it). anywho, may as well wait to see what it looks like before we pass any judgement. The bellman 01:41, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I'd appreciate if everyone took a look at Amazon's top kids magazines. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/browse/-/602322/102-4253025-3140121 Of the 20 shown on the first page:

7 - Text only
10 - Text with simple, one color graphics or shapes
1 - Text with multi-colour graphic (ladybug)
2 - Text with cartoon or illustration (mouse, squirrel)

Not saying the rest of the industry is necessarily right, just chances are that they are. -- user:zanimum

well none of them actually had logos. Maybe we should just have the name (ie. animals, space, etc.) then under that a subscript wikijunior (or whatever we decide for the project name.) The bellman 02:02, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I meant logos as in the general category for logos and wordmarks.

Here's an example of what likely is most appropriate. I threw this together on Photoshop, just to demonstrate the most general of possible layouts.

-- user:zanimum

It looks good - but, I atill think we need a logo of some sort. The logo doesn't even necessarily need to go on the front cover. We could have on the back. With a logo a child can instantly recognise our books/magazine from others. They liked the big cats one, they see another in the bookshop called "Snakes" . How do they know it's our snakes rather than some other publisher's ? Having said that (and i'm kinda thinking out loud here, if we're careful to keep the layout and formatting the same, as soon as they flick through they'll recognise those, so maybe you are right. maybe we don't even need a logo. Theresa knott 18:57, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Wordmarks are recognizable enough that you can instantly identify them. The word "Title" is meant to be "Wikijunior", "Kiki", "WikiWhat?", or whatever is decided on. It remains in the exact same place every issue, just like a logo would, and is in our own distinct colour and distinct font, to be decided later on. Look at Time, Newsweek, Entertainment Weekly, Rolling Stone, Sports Illustrated, US, Cosmopolitan. They all have wordmarks that are totally unique. Fonts may seem limited, but you can communicate so much with them. Just imagine taking the Rolling Stone font (http://i.realone.com/assets/rn/cms/2004/other/rs_961_image_logo.6562336.GIF), typing "National Geographic" in it, and see how much in destroys a photo of an Madgascar peasant. -- user:zanimum

Ok you've pretty much convinced me. We don't actually need a logo as such. I'm warming to the wordmark idea. Theresa knott 10:54, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Spray paint might be better than crayon? like a stencil style? If we knew what name we are going with, I'd do a couple versions to show you what I mean. Spray painted Stencil art is about to be the next big thing in underground art, it seems to really 'grab' the kids I know. There's kids here all the time, and if I can I'll get some feedback straight from them before I upload anything.66.245.208.105 05:12, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)Pedant

Don't bother just yet, trying to create a logo. Until we have name, it's completely redundant. Also, timelessness is a key. We've got to be hip with the kids in Malaysia, Warsaw, the Bronx, Sydney, and Cape Town. Nothing trendy is truely international. -- user:zanimum

"The logo doesn't even necessarily need to go on the front cover. We could have on the back."

If we make it that secondary, it seems like the plain old wikimedia logo would suffice. 128.194.21.25 05:56, 1 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Well it seems preety certain that this isnt going to make it as the wikicommons logo, but a couple of people have noted that it should be used somewhere else so hows about making it into the wikijunior/kieki/wikiworld logo? i still think that if we do have a logo it should be quite small and our main thingo should be a wordmark. The bellman

7-12 year old boys do not want to be seen with flowers, flower-related magazines or anything to do with flowers. Ludraman - talk to me! 13:33, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

That is true. -- user:zanimum

I came up with these three images, all with the same concept of a scribbled WikiMedia logo. Then you could have some stereotypical child-handwriting (you know the font I'm talking about) - these kids are in 6th grade, max.

LockeShocke 00:46, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Here's another that's more crayon-like. And, I'm working on a concept Big Cats cover. I should have that up sometime tonight.

LockeShocke 00:21, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Speaking of the cover concept, here it is:

LockeShocke 00:26, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)

That looks really good. Good work! Josh 07:27, Jan 9, 2005 (UTC)

While the cover is okay, I must wonder why you must try the crayon logo idea again. It seems we're terrified about being interpreted as looking down on the kids in every other aspect of the magazine, in yet we're not afraid to make a logo that looks like a tot drew it. Compare Barbie MyScene [1], BeyBlade [2], or Teen Magazine [3]. Do any of them look extremely young and naive? Not really. We should also wait until the name of the mag is decided, before creating a logo. -- user:zanimum

That's a good point, I think children will generally favor the stuff that makes them feel grown-up, in stead of childish. However, I do think it's possible to start thinking about logo's an design before the name is decided. Just to get an idea of what everybody wants out of a logo like this. Risk

I know it's only a first draft, according to wikipedia, cheetahs can only go at 62 mi/h, and shouldn't that be in SI (100 km/h)?

Here's my two cents:

I'm still fiddling with the colors, but this is the basic idea. It's based on the wikimedia logo with the person more submerged is the book/world (also kind of like the peace sign if you turn it upside down :). It might be a little to boring to appeal to children, but I don't think the project should try to hard to be 'cool'. Any design should really show the subject matter more than anything else. If kids are interested, that will attract them, if they're not, there's not much we can do about it. Here is a cover design, just to show how the logo could be used (I realize that 'tigers' isn't actually going to be a separate booklet, but it's just to get an idea). Risk 09:22, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)

What about having 2 logos. One a simple one, i suggest a combination of the crayon effect on the logo at the centre of Risk's first logo, but then also having a bigger logo, just for the covers/opening pages/etc., which would be more like the logo with the kid's but with Risk's logo (I like your logo Risk!). I'll get to work editing those logos together.--Quadraxis 02:59, 30 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. Though, looking at it now, I can see it could use a bit more work. I might dig up the source files sometime soon. Risk 19:34, 17 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Challenge[edit]

Find me a magazine (that isn't a media empire like Playboy) that has a logo, not a wordmark. -- user:zanimum

I think i got one, but i dont have time to upload a pic yet: LEGO Magazine. --Quadraxis 21:08, 2 Jul 2005 (UTC)

Ok, maybe not. It's the LEGO logo, followed by the words magazine, except the "i" in magasine is designed to look like a brick, and the dot at the top of the "i" is a smaller brick that is red (instead of white like the rest of the text), and it has what looks like a beam of light shooting vertically up out of the red brick. But wikijunior will not be a magazine, it's going to be a series of books! And if you look at the Magic School Bus kids books, they had a logo instead of a wordmark, and i know of a number of other kids' books series that contain logos insteed fo wordmarks. --Quadraxis 21:42, 2 Jul 2005 (UTC)

Yes, touche, LEGO Mag does have a logo, but that's based on a brand of toys. I'm mainly talking of magazines that are actually just magazines, like Sports Illustrated, People, Time, Popular Mechanics... Also if you notice, the LEGO logo is text made from pictures, not just pictures for the heck of it. Any other magazine logo finds? -- user:zanimum

Well, theoretically speaking, a Logo has many meanings. One of them is the logotype, which is VERY common in magazines: every magazine has it's own typical (or sometimes not so typical) typeface, that they use for their name. Think of Cosmopolitan for example, the use a very narrow font, that really stands out. I'm not that much into international magazines (one other that comes to mind is the National Geographic magazine that uses a very traditional serif font (not very common in modern magazines). Anyway, my point is: wether the logo be an emblem or a logotype, it doesn't matter. I do think, however, that "Find an identity for the series" would have been a better assignment. 84.35.70.114 18:47, 5 Jul 2005 (UTC)

Yes, but no. I know "logo" has many different meanings, but I was just trying to prove that only consumer products and like companies have symbolic logos, whereas magazines have wordmarks 99 times out of 100. -- user:zanimum

May i respectfully point out that Wikijunior (or whatever) is not magazines, but books?

They're closer in layout, binding and distribution to magazines that books. Plus, if they're books, that even furthers the fact that they wouldn't need a logo. The publishers put there logos on, but you never see a logo for a particular book or author. -- [[user:zanimum]

I agree with you that very few magazines, and pretty much no books whatsoever have a logo. However, every single wikimedia wiki has a logo. I personally don't care if Wikijunior would be the only book with a logo out there, it's not like other other books. And since this particular wiki would be distributed to a whole new part of the community (hopefully) I think it's a really good idea to give this the wikimedia look as best we can. Risk 19:34, 17 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Question[edit]

I have some logo ideas, but i need to upload them. But first, i need to know what liscense to use. Please help! Im totally lost as to which one to use! Thanks alot. --Quadraxis 01:05, 10 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Upload them to Commons (to make any transitions easier), and use copyrightbywikimedia . Use the category "Wikijunior logotype proposals". -- user:zanimum

Excellent. I'll try to get onto that soon. Thanks! --Quadraxis 03:34, 18 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Word Marks[edit]

Umm I Actually thought of WikiJr as a sort of "Mini-Magazine" and Came up with two ideas.

One, An Issue Specific Word Mark (Left) or Just a Plain wordmark (right) Chris Bryant 19:34, 20 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Nice. I likt the one you labeled "or kinda like this" the best. I think it might be good to insert one of these along with a logo, maybe? --Quadraxis 03:34, 18 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I think it should look like another different type of puzzle ball. Like the Wikipedia logo. Puzzles are things kids can immediately identify with, while at the same time it represents the project. Seems odd to me that the Wikipedia puzzle ball ended up on the site for adults lol. I'm interested in helping with this project. --Nerd42 21:32, 11 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Why a puzzle ball? That's the Wikipedia logo, this is a Wikibooks project. -- user:zanimum

The best so far definitely, BUT what you have here is a masthead for a magazine. Something I think is a good thing. A series. Choose a great font, modify it a bit, and BAM! you have your "wordmark!" or logotype, or logo, or masthead, or whatever... IBM has both. Apple is always written in Garamond Condensed. (Apple writes in Lucida Grande 82.138.216.118 15:12, 13 January 2006 (UTC)(No, Apple uses Myriad Pro... 220.237.123.15 08:48, 17 February 2008 (UTC)) The Times is set in Times. Volkswagen have their own version of Futura. Everyone does it! I've scanned a quick sketch... [reply]

an idea for a logo[edit]

Hi,

1- I think we could try to draw a logo like this (i'm not an artist :o/ so not a good drawer :)) :

a first children have a book in his hand, he is on the first plan, and he looks happy !
the first children is followed by many other children who want to get the book, they look happy too ;)

That was just an idea like another ...

2- Second think i would ask is the following one : is it a good idea to put the name "wikijunior" in the logo ? i think not, because the name may not be the same depend on the language used (ie. wikichicos ...)

In all case continue this work ! you do a good job ;) (sorry my english is very basic ;) --Boly38 17:24, 14 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My idea for project logo[edit]

Parts of UNICEF logo merged with a pastel-shaded version of the Wikimedia logo.

I thought about this for a while, and figured that it would be more child friendly with a totally lower case font, and then merged the child/adult and laurel wreath of the unicef logo, over this pastel colored version of the Wikimedia logo. I think it looks quite good, but thats only my personal opinion, your criticism or comments are always welcomed! Tmalmjursson 01:33, 15 January 2006 (UTC) Talk to me[reply]

Though I'm not sure about the UNICEF, I like the silhouette idea, very race ambiguous. Maybe instead of child/adult a simple boy/girl style, facing forwards to show the outline details.

I'd also definitely support using simple, sans-serif fonts (I don't see the problem using the present wikimedia font) instead of trying to make it look kid-ish with 'cartoony' fonts, which I find quite cheezy. freshgavin ^TALK 07:39, 21 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Just reading this and adding my two cents, I am only slightly older than the age these books are designed for and can safely say that you definitely want to stay away from "cartoony" fonts. Any self-respecting 10-year-old will shy away from books that look as though they were made for younger children. Also, I'm happy to answer any points on this subject, as it looks like it's mostly adults here. 69.226.219.24 06:58, 23 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the comments freshgavin, I am reworking the design as we speak, and I hpe to have a revised line and logo back up within the next 48 hours. Apologies for not getting back to you sooner, but I have been run ragged working on Spoken Wikipedia, my own articles, Wikipedia's Counter Vandalism Unit and holding down 2 jobs as well!!! Regards, and thanks again. Look out for the next one. :) Tmalmjursson 17:23, 26 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Great effort, however, you may encounter copyright problems because you are using UNICEF's logo.

Global Unity[edit]

How about a logo that has many silhouettechildren, of all shapes and sizes, holding hands surrounding the Wikimedia logo? Scienceman123 23:21 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Simple Logo[edit]

The logo that is made should be simple, simple enough that it can be easily done in vector graphics. The colors should be solid, shying away from pale colors and gradients. Details should be kept to a minimum; this will allow the logo to be shrunk and put on the spine of a book. On the cover, only a small area should be taken up by the logo. These are meant to be books rather than magazines, so the actual title of the book should be larger. I think what was done for the Big Cats book was a good idea, restricting the identification of Wikijunior to the left side of the cover, next to the spine of the book.

The ultimate example of what we should shoot for is Eyewitness. Anyone remember those? I loved them and still do, but they're a good example of an effective book that children might like to read. Despite the fact that Eyewitness books have rather whtie pages and their logo is nothing too fancy, the series was very effective. Their logo is only a black and white eye, and isn't even displayed on most of their pages; the publisher's logo is actually on the covers of many, and I actually didn't even know it was there, which goes to show how much any child might remember such a logo. Most of the books just say "Eyewitness Books" in white inside a black bar. What made me come back to Eyewitness was content INSIDE the cover, and everytime I saw the Eyewitness name on a book, I knew the book was good.

So there's no reason to make a complex piece of artwork. I can't see including kids of the world together being a very simple, logo-worthy design; as mentioned before, a good logo should mostly work in black and white too. Tweaking the Wikimedia logo should be the way to go, IMO; keeping the rather circular shape would be pleasing. 128.175.69.165 23:04, 17 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I made a mockup of a logo I think would work, looks good, emphasizes the Wikimedia relationship, and incorporates some of the ideas under discussion on this page. Hope y'all like it.

Specifically, the design uses a bold sans serif font for the Wikijunior name and depicts stylized silhouettes of three kids. The initial idea was that they would interlock and each be symmetrical and identical like paper dolls. The red shape in the middle is taken directly from the Wikimedia logo, although it's green in that logo. I used two of the three colors from the Wikimedia logo. The different skin tones is meant to emphasize that this is a world-wide effort. The "bodies" can be seen as arms cradling a book. The logo looks good even if it's all black. --Xixtas 05:22, 25 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think you should use the original Wikimedia logo colors. (Red, Green and Blue) --Jackl 09:36, 13 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Like this one:

--Jackl 11:26, 13 March 2007 (UTC) I have recreated this basic simple idea with basic simple code in this image:[reply]

I also like the colors used on Image:Jackl_wikijunior.png -Indolences 19:00, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I like the logo, but Wikimedia has not allowed the last few logos that have been created to use Wikimedia colors. Based on the ongoing discussion of the Wikibooks logo they also want colors other than blue. --66.136.217.233 02:20, 21 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Selection process[edit]

There is a selection process for the Wikijunior logo being prepared at Wikijunior/Logo. --Xixtas 04:03, 4 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]