Before you aim the international flame thrower, this post is not going there. We are all going to settle down and make love, not war. Or in this case, we are going to make art, not war. Okay?
Okay. Mister Wong, the German-based social bookmarking portal which recently launched in the U.S., is now looking for a new logo. The search is taking place via an international contest open to anyone. Registered users of Mister Wong will get to vote on their favorite logos, creating a pool of finalists. The final logos will then be judged by a panel of international media, marketing, design and web professionals and the creator of the winning logo gets $6,000! According to the rules:
“The logo should not exploit or offend anyone’s sex, race or religion, be obscene or propagate violence. The logo may not depict any human beings. Beyond these exclusions, it`s all up to you”
I’d say this is a wise guideline, because we all know what happened with the last “logo.” No! Settle down. Focus on the present. Aside from being a brilliant lemonade-from-lemons marketing strategy for Mister Wong, I think this is a great opportunity for everyone who had an opinion about that logo (aesthetic or political) to get creative.
Are you an aspiring artist? An experienced designer burned out from hours of working “for the man?” A German who needs to channel your frustration at us crazy Americans? An Asian who wants to win this one for Ernie or for all those times you got ching-chonged? I say throw your hat in the contest and create a beautiful logo that represents what Mister Wong aims to be: a worldwide social bookmarking tool. There is so much badly designed crap (including some of mine!) that blights the visual landscape of the web. This is your chance to elevate a small piece of it. I know I’m going to give it a shot. Good luck and remember: make art not war.
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jozjozjoz wrote:
“The logo may not depict any human beings.”
Well that kills our idea of making a logo of Mister Wong based on Ernie…
Posted on 09-Aug-07 at 11:22 pm | Permalink
Jodi wrote:
Great entry! I’m all for the love.
Most of you already know that I work for Mister Wong, the social bookmarking site. Usually I am just going on about how I am now addicted to bookmarking and how much I love my job, but today, well…. http://wagner.journalspace.com/?&entryid=886
Posted on 09-Aug-07 at 11:34 pm | Permalink
Claire wrote:
Joz, it’s terribly disappointing isn’t it? Back to the drawing board.
Posted on 10-Aug-07 at 8:00 am | Permalink
Reader wrote:
Crap. I was going to make the same suggestion. Specifically, the one where Ernie is holding the “Preez be retting me in your conutree” card. Wait! That’s okay though! The artist is ASIAN, you see.
Posted on 10-Aug-07 at 11:30 am | Permalink
Xxxtine wrote:
I have this odd visual of Claire at a blackboard with her hair tied back as a sort of sexy dominatrix teacher holding a pointing stick and slamming it down on the desk at the ‘No! Settle down!’ part of the post.
And I’ve never physically met Claire either.
Posted on 10-Aug-07 at 1:48 pm | Permalink
Claire wrote:
Xxxtine, that is xxx! Awesome. I usually do like to use a loud clap on a table surface to get my point across. Works best with boyfriends, flame throwers, hard-of-hearing titas…
Posted on 10-Aug-07 at 1:53 pm | Permalink
Jesse! wrote:
Whoa, it’s up to 12k now… also, they found my post about the debate and EMAILED me to join the contest, hahahahahha. Nice.
Posted on 14-Aug-07 at 9:06 am | Permalink
Claire wrote:
The total prize pool is 12K, 6k will go to the winner, and the next two top finalists will get 3k each. Nice, Jesse! How can you turn down a request from them?
Posted on 14-Aug-07 at 9:42 am | Permalink
Jesse! wrote:
I suck at logo design that’s how!
Maybe I’ll be inspired…
Posted on 14-Aug-07 at 1:34 pm | Permalink
Claire wrote:
Jesse, it’s okay, all contestants have no where to go but up from the last logo!
Posted on 14-Aug-07 at 1:40 pm | Permalink
Reinmar wrote:
In the spirit of making love/art and not war, I’m going to make a suggestion that might help to solve similar conflicts. It applies to other areas, too, but I’ll concentrate on the topic at hand. Note that I realize this solution might be naive on my part and impractical, so I might be totally wrong. Please bear with me
Assuming we can more or less agree on the following premises:
- The Mr. Wong team did not use their original logo to intentionally offend anyone
- The logo *by itself* was not offensive – as not imagery or word can be
- The logo was *subjectively* (I’m not judging here) felt to be offensive to a number of people *by association*, i.e. because similar imagery has been used in the history of the U.S. to express derogatory intent, some/many Asian Americans associate Mr. Wong with those intentions
- In Germany/Europe – which has a different history in that regard than the U.S. – on the other hand, the depiction of an Asian man is generally associated with someone who is clever, resourceful, diligent and hard-working (this apparently was the intent of the Mr. Wong team)
The conclusion would be that although the logo had no bad intentions, it is currently not a wise move to use it when expanding business to countries or cultural regions outside of Germany/Europe, specifically the U.S., where there this may cause offence (see above).
So here’s my idea. As it is difficult and often impossible to discern the intention behind imagery or words on the Net – because we do not personally know the creators – we need a “disclaimer system”. Wouldn’t it make things easier and clearer if you could automatically see in what way something was meant? In the case of the logo, if there were associated information along the lines of
“This logo was chosen/developed because to us, the creators of this service, it represents positive attributes like efficiency, diligence and friendliness. We hereby expressly distance ourselves from negative, derogatory connotations such as may have been or are being inferred by other parties. Thank you.”
The creator “owns” the image and has clearly defined its intent. That means
a) the intent is unambiguously clear to anyone and thus there are no reasons for misinterpretation, and
b) the creation (image) can not be hijacked by others with malicious intentions.
Similarly, other branding elements or content that *could* be misconstrued, like blog posts, comments, forum posts, essays, articles etc., due to cultural differences or the plain fact that the reader/viewer does not know the creator and his/her personality, could benefit from this too. Example: “DISCLAIMER: This post is written with satirical intent. Please take the elements of satire into consideration; please do not interpret as being factually accurate. Please be offended only if the satire aims at you. Thank you.”
Same goes for the other end of the spectrum: “This is genuine flattery. Not sarcasm.” And so forth. Of course, this is all very verbose and obviously it sounds pretty silly, so a technical solution needs to be found. Something along the lines of metadata elements for web documents, digital photography, rating systems for movies. Somewhat more complicated and subtle than a mere scalar or binary value, but I think it can be done.
The point is, I think it would facilitate understanding and fruitful discussion more than is possible at the moment, where A accuses B of whatever, based on subjective or “subjective-cultural/gender/whatever” interpretation while ignoring B’s actual intent or purpose, which B usually finds just as insensitive or insulting and lashes back. And so on. You get the point.
Anyway, for the time being, the logo redesign contest seems like a viable solution.
*Raises index and middle finger, facing palm forward* (see footnote) from Germany.
—Reinmar
Footnote: In my cultural environment that means “peace!”, a sign of goodwill. If anyone is reading this coming from a culture where this may mean something else, e.g. “your mother engages in erotic contact with goats” or “what a bummer, I just missed my bus”, please temporarily readjust your interpretation. Thank you.
Posted on 27-Aug-07 at 6:08 am | Permalink
jerocarts wrote:
Hi! can I still join the logo contest? I will submit after it after five hours. Can you give me a chance.?
Posted on 08-Sep-07 at 11:02 pm | Permalink