It's been far too long since the logo commissioned by the community was completed by John Hicks. But I think it was worth the wait to hold it back until the long-awaited relaunch of the Ruby on Rails website could happen. And today, it did!
The new website brings together all many web properties revolving around Rails. There's the brand new Hieraki-powered Manuals area, there's the Trac for patches and tickets, and of course we still have Instiki running the community area.
In short, it's all there. And we're mighty proud to finally be able to share it with the world!
Challenge by Anonymous Coward on December 27, 19:53
Sorry but the logo doesn't make it for me, it doesn't give an ounce of justice to the top quality of Rails...
When an individual has a Great Vision, get the "community" involved and that's the beginning of the end...
Please let a real designer create a logo from scratch and just approve or dismiss it but the outcome of this community process is plain ugly, way too literal and doesn't nearly convey any feeling of robustness and flexibility...
Besides the new identity, Rails kicks ass so I hope you'll soon get the design department back on tracks ;)
Challenge by awk on December 27, 19:56
Actually the word for the stomach exercises is spelled "sit-ups".
Not the best word though, since repeated sit-ups usually make you leaner. The XML sit-ups make your code get fatter! :-)
The logo misses one of the bars in the inner arc of the r. Also I'd like the blue line at the bottom of the about / download / documentation / ... navigation's gradient to be brighter. It looks a bit odd right now.
Challenge by Mike Anon on December 27, 20:18
I love the site and the logo! Great job everybody! Has the great look & feel similar to the Mozilla community.
Originally I hated the direction of the logo and all, but given time, it's grown on me.
Wow! I better start learning rails now.
Challenge by hangon on December 27, 21:42
COME ON GUYS this logo is AWFUL ....really bad.
why this ruby thing....is apple puting the IBM logo on their brand new G5....so why putting a ruby in the LOGO????
recently i discovered 2 magical things
- ruby on rails
- textmate
something in common for these 2 products? YES...WORST LOGOS ever seen :)
flgr: I guess the missing bar is missing on purpose.
anonymous: the logo *was* made from a professional designer,
and it was mostly chosen from david, if you look at the wiki you'll notice some mobbing against a former version of it ;)
I think the final version is better, anyway.
DHH: congrats , anyway fix the rubygems link, now
http://download.rubyonrails.org/
points to www.rubyonrails.com.
Oh, and it would be fine to have http://rubyonrails.com point to www.
Challenge by Michel on December 27, 22:05
Typo on the home page: insted of Yukihiru it should be Yukihiro. The site is better, but the logo doesn't look that good.
Please let a real designer create a logo from scratch
Eh, and what might you think David did? You think Jon Hicks is just another logo-hobbyist-community-member? Well, he isn't. You're free to dislike the new looks but the "community effort" scenario you described couldn't be much further from the reality.
Oh, and David, some pages (including my FastCGI on OS X tutorial) seem to be missing from the new wiki.
So, what does "situps" mean then? I haven't found it in any of the dictionaries I tried :-)
Challenge by Anonymous Coward on December 28, 0:40
I'm not quite sure if Sir Hicks is going to put this one in his portfolio... Sorry guys but this is just plain ugly and amateurish work. If the cash offered by the rails people was not enough to get the quality one could expect from the brilliant guy who designed the Firefox and Thunderbird logos, he should have refused the job...
In fact, the previous site looked much more professional than the current mozilla rip-off... ok, the website is not that bad but I mean, that huge logo really screw up the whole thing big time...
Alright, enough bashing, I hope there'll be enough feedback to have this major part of the visual identity fixed soon... now let's get back to code...
Wow. This is a rough anonymous crowd :) David, some of us lurkers out here do appreciate the effort you & your cohorts have made. I can feel the momentum of Rails, and I haven't even stepped on the train! Will jump aboard this week.
I think the logo concept is great. IMHO, it would look even better if the track & RAILS word was shaded/diffracted, like a ruby was sitting on top, so it's really ruby ON rails. If you keep the white letters/track on top, you could tweak the shading so it does justice to and reinforces the three-dimensionality of the gem beneath. The current logo mixes some shading on top (without 3D distortion) with a flat, unshaded RAILS below, and I think that disconnect may be bothering some people.
The new layout of the Rails home looks good -- more professional than the previous version. It seems less of a sprawling repository of collected tidbits and more like a well-organized foundation for a project with momentum. Congratulations.
I'd have to agree with Bill.. I very much like the direction the site is heading, it's a huge step forward. I don't think I can be any more specific than Bill on what might be part of the problem w/ the logo, though -- other than to say it just doesn't quite "seem right". To add to his comments.. even the rounding of the track in formation of the "r" looks off.
Can someone tell me who did the graphic design for the current Ruby on Rails site? If you know and you could take second to email me at the address on my resume, I would sincerely appreciate it.
