11th
A highly consistent corporate identity with almost no control. Can this really be happening?
Here at T3CON08 there are obviously TYPO3 logo and CI implementations all over the place. I managed the project of building the new open source TYPO3 CI back in 2005 and gave a lot of thoughts to how to control the thousands of identity-based applications that would arise after the logo, font, concept and color files were released.
Controlling the CI and thereby the brand experience was to be about motivation - and not centralized control. So the only things we did were to build simple web pages, a Creative Commons License and very informal mail correspondence to those (very few) examples of more problematic misuse of the CI.
A look at flickr/photos/tags/t3con08 shows you TYPO3 branded t-shirts, powerpoint presentations and even cigars with the logo and the costum TYPO3 font, Share.
I have to say that I’m totally amazed about how consistent and outright beautiful implementations of the CI are done here.
When the design team originally talked about the guidelines of the visual identity and how strict or open they were to be structured, we really wanted to create a motivational system, yet at the same time we were very nervous about how to keep the consistency of a brand being continously contributed to by hundreds of individual agencies and people working with the open source CMS.
Now looking at speakers having done powerpoints with usage of the Share font and even with video clips incorporating the logo - with absolutely no identity-flaws what-so-ever, that’s extremely exciting.
Organizations all over the world spend millions on keeping this consistency of CI’s - here we have an open source community just following simple guidelines - and having almost no consistency problems with virtually no control beyond a few rules and a Creative commons license.
