The CentOS Project Corporate Visual Identity

============================================

Alain Reguera Delgado <al@centos.org.cu>

v1.0, Jul 2013

Abstract

--------

The CentOS Project Corporate Identity is the ``persona'' of the

organization known as The CentOS Project.  The CentOS Project

Corporate Identity plays a significant role in the way The CentOS

Project, as organization, presents itself to both internal and

external stakeholders. In general terms, The CentOS Project Corporate

Identity expresses the values and ambitions of The CentOS Project

organization, its business, and its characteristics.

The CentOS Project Corporate Identity provides visibility,

recognizability, reputation, structure and identification to The

CentOS Project organization by means of Corporate Design, Corporate

Communication, and Corporate Behaviour.

[[corporate_identity]]

.The CentOS Project Corporate Identity

image::../corporate.png[alt="The CentOS Project Corporate Identity"]

Corporate Mission

-----------------

The CentOS Project exists to produce The CentOS Distribution, an

Enterprise-class Linux Distribution derived from sources freely

provided to the public by a prominent North American Enterprise Linux

vendor.  The CentOS Distribution conforms fully with the upstream

vendors redistribution policy and aims to be 100% binary compatible.

(The CentOS Distribution mainly changes packages to remove upstream

vendor branding and artwork.).

The CentOS Distribution is developed by a small but growing team of

core developers.  In turn the core developers are supported by an

active user community including system administrators, network

administrators, enterprise users, managers, core Linux contributors

and Linux enthusiasts from around the world.

The CentOS Distribution has numerous advantages including: an active

and growing user community, quickly rebuilt, tested, and QA'ed errata

packages, an extensive mirror network, developers who are contactable

and responsive of a reliable Enterprise-class Linux Distribution,

multiple free support avenues including a

http://wiki.centos.org/[Wiki],

http://www.centos.org/modules/tinycontent/index.php?id=8[IRC Chat],

http://lists.centos.org/[Email Lists],

http://www.centos.org/modules/newbb/[Forums], and a dynamic

http://www.centos.org/modules/smartfaq/[FAQ].

Corporate Graphic Design

------------------------

The corporate design is focused on the effective presentation of

corporate messages. As corporate messages we understand all the

information emitted from the organization; and when we say _all_ we

mean everything that can be perceived through the human senses. The

corporate design takes care of defining what this information is and

controlling the way it goes out the organization producing it.

When the organization doesn't take control over the corporate messages

it produces, the organization is letting that area of its identity to

the unknown and the results might be good or not so good, it is hard

to know.  The issue to see here is that even the organization doesn't

take control over its corporate messages, they are always talking

about the organization.  Taking control of corporate messages is a

decision the organization needs to take by itself, based on its need

of better describe what it is.

In the very specific case of The CentOS Project, we'll concentrate our

attention on corporate messages that reach us through the visual

sense. This is, all the visual manifestations The CentOS Project is

made of. As visual manifestations we understand all the visible media

The CentOS Project uses to manifest its existence on.  At this point

it is necessary to consider what The CentOS Project is, what its

mission is and what it is producing. This, in order to identify which

visual manifestations the organization is demanding attention of

corporate design for.

Inside The CentOS Project we identify and apply corporate design to the following

visual manifestations:

- *The CentOS Distribution:*  This visual manifestation exists to

  cover all actions related to artwork production and re-branding,

  required by The CentOS Distribution in order to comply with

  upstream's redistribution guidelines.

- *The CentOS Web:* This visual manifestation exists to cover all

  actions related to artwork production required by The CentOS Project

  to manifest its existence in the World Wide Web medium.

- *The CentOS Showroom:* This visual manifestation exists to cover all

  actions related to artwork production required by The CentOS Project

  to manifest its existence through media produced industrially (e.g.,

  stationery, clothes, CDs, DVDs, etc.).

The visual manifestations identified above seem to cover most media

required by The CentOS Project, as organization, to show its

existence.  However, other visual manifestations could be added in the

future, as long as they be needed, to cover different areas like

stands, buildings, offices, road transportation or whatever visual

manifestation The CentOS Project touches to show its existence.

Once all visual manifestations have been identified and defined

through design models, it is time to visually remark their connection

with The CentOS Project.  This kind of connection is realized by

applying The CentOS Brand to design models inside visual

manifestations supported through corporate design.

Corporate Communication

-----------------------

The CentOS Project corporate communication is focused on the effective

propagation of corporate messages. Propagation of corporate messages

is closely related to the media the organization uses as vehicle to

distribute its corporate messages.

The CentOS Project corporate communication takes place through the

following visual manifestations:

The CentOS Distribution

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This visual manifestation communicates its existence through software

packages.  There are packages that make a remarkable use of images,

packages that make a moderate use of images, and packages that don't

use images at all.  This visual manifestation is focused on providing

The CentOS Project images required by software packages that do use

images in a remarkable way, specially those holding the upstream brand

(e.g., _anaconda_, _grub_, _syslinux_, _gdm_, _kdebase_).

- The Community Enterprise Operating System itself (communicates the

  essense of The CentOS Project existence.).

- Release Schema (Lifetime) and all the stuff related (e.g., Release

  Notes, Documentation, Erratas, etc.).

The CentOS Web

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This visual manifestation communicates its existence through web

applications.  These web applications are free software and come from

different providers which distribute their work with predefined visual

styles.  Frequently, these predefined visual styles have no visual

relation among themselves and introduce some visual contradictions

when they all are put together.  Removing these visual contradictions

is object of work for this visual manifestation.

- The CentOS Chat.

- The CentOS Mailing Lists.

- The CentOS Forums.

- The CentOS Wiki.

- Special Interest Groups (SIGs).

- Social Events, Interviews, Conferences, etc.

- The extensive network of mirrors available for downloading ISO files

  as well as RPMs and SRPMs used to build them up in different

  architectures.

The CentOS Showroom

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This visual manifestation communicates its existence through

production of industrial objects carrying The CentOS Brand.  These

branded objects are directed to be distributed on social events and/or

shops. They provide a way of promotion and commercialization that may

help to reduce The CentOS Project expenses (e.g., electrical power,

hosting, servers, full-time-developers, etc.), in a similar way as

donations may do.

- Stationery (e.g., Posters, Stickers, CD Lables and Sleeves).

- Clothes (e.g., Shirts, T-shirts, Pullovers, Caps).

- Installation media (e.g., CDs, DVD, Pendrives).

Corporate Behaviour

-------------------

The CentOS Project corporate behaviour is focused on the effective

interaction of each member involved in the organization (e.g., core

developers, community members, etc.).  It is related to ethics and

politics used to do the things inside the organization. It is related

to the sense of direction chosen by the organization and they way the

organization projects itself to achieve it.

The CentOS Project corporate behaviour takes place through The CentOS

Project corporate communication, as described above.

Corporate Structure

-------------------

The CentOS Project corporate structure is based on a Monolithic

Corporate Visual Identity Structure. In this configuration, one unique

name and one unique visual style is used in all visual manifestation

The CentOS Project is made of.

In a monolithic corporate visual identity structure, internal and

external stakeholders use to feel a strong sensation of uniformity,

orientation, and identification with the organization. No matter if

you are visiting web sites, using the distribution, or acting on

social events, the one unique name and one unique visual style

connects them all to say: Hey! we are all part of The CentOS Project.

Other corporate structures for The CentOS Project have been considered

as well. Such is the case of producing one different visual style for

each major release of The CentOS Distribution. This structure isn't

inconvenient at all, but some visual contradictions could be

introduced if it isn't applied correctly and we need to be aware of

it. To apply it correctly, we need to know what The CentOS Project is

made of.

The CentOS Project, as organization, is mainly made of (but not

limited to) three visual manifestions: The CentOS Distribution, The

CentOS Web and The CentOS Showroom.  Inside The CentOS Distribution

visual manifestations, The CentOS Project maintains near to four

different major releases of The CentOS Distribution, parallely in

time.  However, inside The CentOS Web visual manifestations, the

content is produced for no specific release information (e.g., there

is no a complete web site for each major release of The CentOS

Distribution individually, but one web site to cover them all).

Likewise, the content produced in The CentOS Showroom is industrially

created for no specific release, but The CentOS Project in general.

In order to produce the The CentOS Project Monolithic Corporate Visual

Identity Structure correctly, we need to concider all the visual

manifestations The CentOS Project is made of, not just one of them.

If one different visual style is implemented for each major release of

The CentOS Distribution, which one of those different visual styles

would be used to cover the remaining visual manifestations The CentOS

Project is made of (e.g., The CentOS Web and The CentOS Showroom)?

Probably you are thinking: yes, I see your point, but The CentOS Brand

connects them all already, why would we need to join them up into the

same visual style too, isn't it more work to do, and harder to

maintain?

Harder to maintain, more work to do, probably. Specially when you

consider that The CentOS Project has proven stability and consistency

through time and, that, certainly, didn't come through swinging

magical wands or something but hardly working out to automate tasks

and providing maintenance through time.  With that in mind, I consider

The CentOS Project Corporate Visual Identity Structure must be

consequent with such stability and consistency tradition.  It is true

that The CentOS Brand does connect all the visual manifestations it is

present on, but that connection is strengthened if one unique visual

style backups it.  In fact, whatever thing you do to strength the

visual connection among The CentOS Project visual manifestations would

be very good in favor of The CentOS Project recognition.

Obviously, having just one visual style in all visual manifestations

for eternity would be a very boring thing and would give the idea of a

visually outdated project. So, there is no problem on creating new

visual styles for each new major release of The CentOS Distribution,

in order to refresh The CentOS Distribution visual style; the problem

itself is in not propagating the new visual style created for the new

release of The CentOS Distribution to all other visual manifestations

The CentOS Project is made of, in a way The CentOS Project could be

recognized no matter what visual manifestation be in front of us. Such

lack of uniformity is what introduces the visual contradiction we

would be precisely trying to solve by mean of themes production in The

CentOS Artwork Repository.

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