Ubuntu’s Circle of Friends Gets Smaller

According to our Google Analytics, 58% of your are using a Macintosh Operating System, 39% are on Windows, 1.5% are logged as using the iPhone OS, and, finally, as the subject of today’s post, 0.65% of you are reading this from a Linux Operating System. (Wow, 0.01% use Playstation 3!). The Linux platform, in contrast to that of Apple’s and Microsoft’s, is free and open source and has major street cred among hardcore developers and people that simply want a tinkerable alternative to the Mac vs. PC battle. Also, unlike its commercial brethren, various operating systems can operate in a Linux environment, and one of the most popular is Ubuntu — launched in 2004 by Canonical Ltd. and embraced by a growing community of users that contribute to its growth and evolution. Under a new brand vision of “Light” Ubuntu is preparing to change its identity this coming April.

The new style in Ubuntu is inspired by the idea of “Light”.

We’re drawn to Light because it denotes both warmth and clarity, and intrigued by the idea that “light” is a good value in software. Good software is “light” in the sense that it uses your resources efficiently, runs quickly, and can easily be reshaped as needed. Ubuntu represents a break with the bloatware of proprietary operating systems and an opportunity to delight to those who use computers for work and play. More and more of our communications are powered by light, and in future, our processing power will depend on our ability to work with light, too.

Visually, light is beautiful, light is ethereal, light brings clarity and comfort.
— On Brand at the Ubuntu Wiki

As the cornerstone of the old and new identity is the “circle of friends,” an icon showing three abstract human figures coming together to form a whole. A lovely concept. A terribly tired visual cliché. And, in this case, one tepidly executed and forgettable that has not evolved in the least for the new identity. What is worse is that now that it is significantly smaller in relationship to the typography, the shapes become indistinguishable. But let’s assume that the “circle of friends” has enough equity within its community to survive at that size, then at least some technical assistance should have been provided to make it more readable and scalable — perhaps not to the exhausting degree of Firefox, but in that vein.

In terms of typography, I surprisingly liked the old one, or at least the combination of these particular letters, since the full font is kind of half-cooked. The new type is more techie and gadgety, rarely a good thing, and it doesn’t quite work here, as it breaks the harmony of the characters with those pointed corners. And being so big, the typography would have to be so much more interesting than this.

In the Brand page of their Wiki, Ubuntu presents the new look along with some conceptual sketches of what the brand will look like and how the different members of its community can embrace the new identity. In either case, old and new, the whole is a mess of its parts. It’s understandable that not everything has to follow a dictatorial style but these are so similar that they just don’t gel together. I may be coming across as drastically critical of an open source project, but if the idea is that the power of the community can create something great, like software, then shouldn’t the same be expected of their identity?

Thanks to KT for first tip.

Ondra’s comment is:

Uff… horrible change. From fresh to boring. From light to dark.

On Mar.10.2010 at 06:12 AM

sam’s comment is:

However cliched the circle of friends is, it is a nice icon, and shouldn’t have been reduced to a near non legible version. The old typography, although a bit doodgy, related to the circular and ‘friendliness’ of the COF icon, and therefore fitted as a whole.
The old colours work better at distinguishing between the ‘friends’ and help lift the overall logo.
What’s going on with the different brand ideas, they jump between old and new logos, big and small, left to right…there’s no coherence here at all! Stick to the old logo, the new looks like a bank.

On Mar.10.2010 at 06:18 AM

coda’s comment is:

I wasn’t a fan of the old type, the new type is hardly an improvement. I don’t dislike it, but there’s just nothing about it that I like. It’s weak. The COF logomark I’ve always loved however, and not convinced that making it smaller will work in their favour.

But it all seems to come together in the execution, on Page 2 of the Brand Wiki in particular. I really like what they’ve done there.

On Mar.10.2010 at 06:53 AM

Erwin’s comment is:

Font choice = improved.
Readability and use of icon = worsened.
Overall = (still) too messy

On Mar.10.2010 at 06:56 AM

bottleHeD’s comment is:

I actually like the new font better, but reducing the icon to that size makes it look like a ® or © symbol. That’s a very perplexing decision.

As for the set of 5, both the old and new looks messy.

Perhaps they should just have an open cry for help.

On Mar.10.2010 at 07:03 AM

buruno’s comment is:

I saw this last week and didn’t really care to analise it. Now that I did, I can see why: bore. I find the older version much better, as it had such a nice interaction with the Southern African word. Besides, it is so hard to see good logos with rounded typefaces nowadays..

On Mar.10.2010 at 07:04 AM

ScottyM’s comment is:

Not an improvement. Why take out all the color? It made the mark.

On Mar.10.2010 at 07:33 AM

Elizabeth’s comment is:

It’s not just the size reduction that makes the logo harder to distinguish - why did they choose to put it inside a circle thereby losing the more interesting holding shape? Unfortunately at a distance now it just looks like an off-axis triangle in a circle. Interesting too how almost all of their extended branding pictograms stick with more interesting bounding shapes. It really helps in discernability.

I think the only thing I like about this change is the new slightly off-black for the lettering. I agree with ScottyM about the color loss, but I also appreciate the desire for a 2-color logo.

On Mar.10.2010 at 07:48 AM

awesomerobot’s comment is:

If Ubuntu ever wants to play with the big guys it needs to solidify a more consistent brand. They just took it from a somewhat unique mess to a more generic one.

On Mar.10.2010 at 07:54 AM

d_rek’s comment is:

I think the wordmark is a win but the teensy little icon gets all but lost and feels like an afterthought. The playfulness of the color is also lost on this refresh.

Humm, maybe after they refresh the brand a few more times they’ll hit the right note.

On Mar.10.2010 at 07:58 AM

Larry W’s comment is:

The new font is awesome, and I’m glad to see that!

But, man… why did they shrink down the single most interesting part of the logo?

On Mar.10.2010 at 08:13 AM

Mike Williams’s comment is:

Interestingly, the rebranding process seems very transparent, though not open-source itself. It seems the changes may have been mostly internal, via Ubuntu’s founder’s company & the commercial sponsor “Canonical” (http://www.canonical.com/).

Between Cononical’s very similar brandmark and the other sub-brands shown above, it looks like Ubuntu still has some brand-architecture challenges ahead in creating a visual system and heirarchy around their products, services, divisions, etc.

On Mar.10.2010 at 08:26 AM

Dale Campbell’s comment is:

hmmm.

Not sure about this one.

There was something clever about the juxtaposition of serious icon/relaxed font in the old identity that I thought worked really well. I was even able to look past the tired icon’s concept.

I agree with the previous posters, that the new icon in the new mark looks like a disproportioned copyright symbol - especially at smaller sizes.

I do feel however, that in both the before and after cases, the sub brands or identities are just plain disgusting. A mish-mash of non-uniformity, colors and compositions.

On Mar.10.2010 at 08:27 AM

vegetables’s comment is:

it’s weird how they talk about light, but i would describe the new type as totally corporate, cold, and generic… plus, the new treatment of the icon doesn’t make it feel warmer, at all.
i wouldn’t feel at home, and i think it’d be a turn off for people trying their luck with linux/gnu…

On Mar.10.2010 at 08:33 AM

Jon’s comment is:

I’d have preferred the old type to be tightened up rather than starting afresh entirely with something which (while a nicer typeface overall) is far too generic to actually differentiate Ubuntu in a marketplace where they’re struggling to get their heads over Windows et al in terms of public recognition.

The applications aren’t too bad, but I can’t see why (if they’re going to go with that type) they haven’t just made the icon a bit bigger and pegged it to the left of the type, so it’s at least consistent in format and scale even if the icon itself varies between applications.

Oh, and the ‘d’ in ‘spread ubuntu’ is painfully executed.

On Mar.10.2010 at 09:42 AM

qwertyale’s comment is:

the idea of shrinking it is obvious, the tiny logo feel like TM because it’s open source and don’t need to pay copyrights.

the overall logo wants to say “I made it using Cheapo Office, no skills needed”.

On Mar.10.2010 at 10:08 AM

Brian Son’s comment is:

Interestingly, the idea of “light” is entirely absent from any of the logos. I was surprised by the lack of congruity between the separate brands, granted, the typeface is the same but put them together and there’s little that actually connects them.

I would have to see the branding collateral before I say this is a hit or miss, but with the logo on its own, I would hardly say it would bring any shine into any environment.

On Mar.10.2010 at 10:28 AM

ilovetype’s comment is:

Looks like someone new got hired in management and wanted to piss all over everything.

On Mar.10.2010 at 10:39 AM

adam’s comment is:

haha, i love the little mouse head in the xubuntu version!

On Mar.10.2010 at 10:41 AM

jinushaun’s comment is:

The new logo feels more corporate. Shame they reduced the size of the icon. So many companies drop the wordmark for just the icon (e.g., Apple, Nike, etc), it’s weird that Ubuntu chose to accentuate the boring wordmark over the recognisable icon.

On Mar.10.2010 at 10:42 AM

Alphonse’s comment is:

The new wordmark and colour are an improvement, but yeah, bigger is better in this case.

On Mar.10.2010 at 10:59 AM

stan’s comment is:

the new system feels very disjointed. the very least they could’ve done is do the same wordmark + icon lockup for everything—a predictable, but clear solution.

On Mar.10.2010 at 11:26 AM

Marcello’s comment is:

Like the new font, but miss the more colorful treatment of the “circle of friends” in the old logo. The old colors fit in nicely with the “African” theme, which even extends to the audio clips embedded in the OS.

BTW, I just installed Ubuntu on an old Windows machine. It’s user-friendly and blazing fast. If Adobe puts out a Linux edition, I’ll be happy to say goodbye to Windows and Mac forever!

On Mar.10.2010 at 12:04 PM

Mongoose’s comment is:

Mmm. Well,t he new one’s not bad, but…

You’ve got two basic choices in trying to evolve the brand: Make it look ‘friendly’ or ‘professional’. The old style had a very ‘friendly’ look, the three ‘u’s and the ‘n’ being such simple curves, the circle of friends being large, bright, cheerful. I rather liked it, as much as it is a touch cliched; Linux being promoted as a community-hippie free thing is one of its greatest strengths to adoption.

Now? It’s quite serious and businesslike. All those ‘u’s and so much lost; and while I’m always biased towards a full crossbar on a ‘t’. in this case it’s particularly desired with the sharper ‘b’.

The enclosure around the white circle of friends is.. it almost works. It screams out for something more interesting there. even *shudder* a gradient. The old three-color one had an element, cliched as it was, of diversity; this new one is three identical figures. Metaphor reduced.

I give it a D. It’s simply not a positive direction.

—Mongoose

On Mar.10.2010 at 12:06 PM

Adria’s comment is:

Hi!
It’s darker … I don’t understand why they choose brown colour for the symbol; it gets too serious and introspective.
The old one was better, at least you can perceive the business of the company.

On Mar.10.2010 at 12:13 PM

Ben Lacy’s comment is:

Let me preface this by saying that I’m a huge fan of Ubuntu as an operating system, and I use it almost just as much as Snow Leopard and Windows 7.

However, while the logo is a slight improvement, I still think it could be far, far better. It suffers from the problem of design-by-committee. They need a benevolent dictator to get in there and call the shots. That’s the only way it’s going to improve as much as it needs to.

On Mar.10.2010 at 12:20 PM

Harris’s comment is:

Did anyone else notice that there is no consistency with having a full or cut off “t” in the logos?

On Mar.10.2010 at 12:30 PM

Darrel’s comment is:

re: type

The typeface is still under development and will eventually be released as open source. It’s being created by Dalton Maag.

Some details can be pulled out of this discussion here:

http://typophile.com/node/68016

On Mar.10.2010 at 01:13 PM

Reed Reibstein’s comment is:

Armin, regarding the old type, that font was actually custom designed for Ubuntu by Christian Robertson (http://betatype.com/node/36). Unlike the DaFont ripoff you linked to, Christian’s font is fully featured, with small caps (and small cap figures), stylistic alternates, and a decent set of accented characters.

The new type is also custom, but this time from Dalton Maag. Discussion of it on Typophile here: http://www.typophile.com/node/68016

On Mar.10.2010 at 01:22 PM

Dimka’s comment is:

Once you get at least 10% of site visitors to use Ubuntu you can worry about logo. It’s not an issue that should get attentions and resources right now

On Mar.10.2010 at 04:07 PM

FG’s comment is:

I think that the new wordmark is an improvement. The old one looked friendly, but it really doesn’t seem as “serious” as the Windows and Mac OS X logos, and if Canonical wants Ubuntu to be taken seriously as a desktop operating system, a redesign *is* necessary. Considering their goals, I think they’ve definitely achieved that.

On Mar.10.2010 at 05:26 PM

Patrick’s comment is:

Oh boy. I didn’t expect them to make it LESS friendlier. I don’t think their “seriousness” was a concern. I’ve always thought of Linux as a very serious OS already.

On Mar.10.2010 at 05:39 PM

Ryan’s comment is:

The type is better, but that’s about it. New has zero personality.

On Mar.10.2010 at 06:07 PM

Juan’s comment is:

“But if the idea is that the power of the community can create something great, like software, then shouldn’t the same be expected of their identity?”

The reason Design By Committee doesn’t work for brand identities is the same reason movies that get the endless focus group treatment usually end up sucking.

On Mar.10.2010 at 06:26 PM

Stuart McCoy’s comment is:

”..but if the idea is that the power of the community can create something great, like software, then shouldn’t the same be expected of their identity?”

Design by committee is design by committee. In the OSS world the committee is MUCH larger and much harder to please.

On Mar.10.2010 at 07:34 PM

Andrew Fitzsimon’s comment is:

Attn Reed Reibstein’s

you’re wrong about the history of the original logotype for ubuntu. AFAIK

The font started as adobe VAG rounded during initial brand discovery,
was heavily modified (just the logotype) under discussion with mark shuttleworth and the southafrican agency who created the logomark / naked people.
Then, the a-z set was reinterpreted into the official brand font by myself about 5 years ago. for $2k

I am not a font designer but I am the font engineer who created the font files and wore my designer hat to finish the a-z. the purpose was to enable derivative projects to maintain consistent branding.

Hope this clarifies

On Mar.10.2010 at 07:40 PM

Ethan’s comment is:

Remember that Ubuntu is open-source—the community can decide to change it at any time.

On Mar.10.2010 at 09:26 PM

Fábio Barbosa’s comment is:

I really hope they’re going to refine some of those details before actual release. For instance:

- Why is the word ‘spread’ in the new Spread Ubuntu logo still set in the old font?
- What about those stems and the T crossbar in Xubuntu’s logo?
- Why are all the Circles of Friends set in the 3 usual colors, in the new versions, except for the main Ubuntu mark?
- And why don’t they make up their mind and make all Circles either 2D or 3D?

Other than that, I actually enjoy the new typography, and the new color scheme (for those who didn’t notice, now it’s purple and orange instead of the old brown, orange, whatever) as well.

On Mar.10.2010 at 10:04 PM

Anthony Hawkins’s comment is:

I think they are on the right track. However, the icon needs to be bigger and used like a logomark rather than a tiny circle on the end.
The font isn’t that bad in my opinion.

The consistency throughout the brand is horrible. There are reused elements from the previous logos and brand making a mess of things.

Overall I think it needs some more refinement.

On Mar.10.2010 at 10:15 PM

Chuck Spidell’s comment is:

That logo is going to scale really well.

On Mar.11.2010 at 01:37 AM

dsi r4’s comment is:

I thought the whole idea behind Ubuntu was that everything was supposed to be free(as in speak and beer). You are allowed to copy as much of the source code as you want, why not the graphics?

On Mar.11.2010 at 04:23 AM

chaliyans’s comment is:

Hi,

Does anyone know who designed the original logo? and the new one?

I googled a lot for that “man/woman”. But no where there is a mention on the identity. Can anyone shed light on this?

— chaliyans

On Mar.11.2010 at 06:16 AM

Reed Reibstein’s comment is:

Andy, sorry for the mistake; I was too hasty in posting. I dug a bit deeper into Christian Robertson’s site, and it does look like he redrew and expanded on your previous work but definitely did not originate it. You even appear to have commented on his early improvements!: http://betatype.com/node/5

On Mar.11.2010 at 04:14 PM

Reed Reibstein’s comment is:

Whoops, and then I presumed to call you Andrew :-) I’ve got to stop typing so quickly.

On Mar.11.2010 at 04:15 PM

Carlos’s comment is:

As an occasional user of Ubuntu, I don’t entirely like it and don’t entirely hate the new look. I dig the idea of “light” and the “lightness” of the font but I am not a fan of the font itself, in particular I dislike the pointy corners. Maybe they could have lightened the earlier font and had a look not to different from the previous one but different enough. The “circle of friends” logo should have stayed the same size and in the same place, though I appreciate the move to just orange and white.

On Mar.11.2010 at 08:53 PM

Tez’s comment is:

I personally feel a mic between the old and new would have been great. I love the old typography is screams young and youthful whilst the new type looks a tad on the corporate side and less on the fringe. As for the icon, I like the new version over the old. I like the superscript positioning as its a little less old school in terms of its positioning.

One thing I hate though for both is how they have translated variations of subsidiaries. Yuck!

On Mar.11.2010 at 10:34 PM

Ezequias Viana’s comment is:

Gosto da nova tipografia, mas o ícone com esta cor velha!? Não dá né.

On Mar.12.2010 at 08:22 AM

evan’s comment is:

superscripting the icon definitely away attention. the colour chosen for the icon is also rather dull. it would be much more effective to use magenta or electric blue to grab your attention.

the more i look at the type the more i like it. however, i believe that the original type was far less generic and quite recognizable.

On Mar.12.2010 at 03:14 PM

Chris Young’s comment is:

Hate to say it, but the new look is a bit of a fail.

I think the biggest blunder with the update has been shrinking the icon. While it wasn’t an earth-shattering design in the first place, the original worked well and was instantly recognisable.

I’d say that they would have done well to leave the icon design (and its sub-marks) and change the type. The sizing and balance of icon to text needed to be made more consistent, which they still haven’t achieved.

On Mar.12.2010 at 08:57 PM

enrolled agent’s comment is:

I agree with most of the comments here. Making the COF logo smaller doesn’t help Ubuntu more. In fact, it seems to have a negative impact to users. Like the Circle of Friends is not important to them anymore. It doesn’t help that the logo is not well to known in the first place. Making it smaller would make it almost nondescript and unrecognizable to most.

On Mar.13.2010 at 12:44 AM

bb_face’s comment is:

I don’t see the improvement here. I mean, to change from brighter happier colors (even the black looks happy) to gray and worn out ones, how is that a good decision.

On Mar.14.2010 at 04:41 PM

Kris Robinson’s comment is:

I actually don’t mind it as much here:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Brand2

On Mar.15.2010 at 12:58 AM

Katie’s comment is:

I’m actually surprised how much I dislike this new one.

On Mar.15.2010 at 02:12 AM

MSGDS’s comment is:

I like the new typeface, but what happened to the icon? you can barely see it, and taking out the color makes it dull.

On Mar.15.2010 at 05:19 PM

Treefingers’s comment is:

Frankly, you can’t expect an open source project to successfully brand themselves according to commercial standards. FOSS is too much about radical particularism to allow for that. If you leave the graphic art to the community, you’ll get lots of good art (and lots of shit), but nothing unified and authoritative. It just doesn’t work that way. Even a democratic method, with everyone voting on the best logo, would be antithetical. Brand control is the product of outdated concepts like intellectual property, so FOSS prefers to present the whole pile and let people chose for themselves.

If you *want* a unified look, you have to do things more conventionally. Since Ubuntu is trying to legitimize Linux to the “uninitiated” they’ve chosen to market themselves more as a unified brand since traditional FOSS offerings are extremely disorienting to those used to just buying a box of a shelf.

On Mar.15.2010 at 05:26 PM

Felex Tan’s comment is:

I like to 1st one coz it delivers a message United..the color looks modern.Overall i will give 8 out of 10..cheers

On Mar.15.2010 at 10:53 PM

Berthold’s comment is:

Whoever decided ubuntu, the number 1 most approachable distribution, needed more of an edge? Terrible, just terrible. Both the new font as well as the new icon position work against the brand unbuntu has worked so hard to establish over all these years.

And the one thing that has always been holding back Linux in all its incarnations? Design. For one, mostly engineers and technicians use Linux, and they usually care very little about design, seeing it as a footnote in their todo lists. Designers themselves still use Windows or Mac OS because they care less about their operating system and more about the toolset they are accustomed to. Thus, both the UI and the brands have suffered greatly and have never had much of a chance at competing with the commercial OSs.

Pretty much until Ubuntu came along, where design was finally taken (more or less) seriously and streamlined to a point where it wouldn’t appeal to everybody any more. Open source design makes for terribly generic communication, and Canonical saw that and made it a team effort, not everybodies business. To that end, this new logo is a step back from the brand that finally appeals to non-technical people. Shame, really.

On Mar.16.2010 at 07:24 AM

penguin’s comment is:

old type look smooth and real friendly

On Apr.25.2010 at 10:47 AM