<?xml version="1.0"?>
<sect1 id="dirs-trunk-identity" xreflabel="trunk/Identity">
<title>The <filename class="directory">trunk/Identity</filename> directory</title>
<para>The <filename class="directory">trunk/Identity</filename>
directory implements The CentOS Project <emphasis>corporate
identity</emphasis> based on the The CentOS Project
<emphasis>mission</emphasis> and <emphasis>release
schema</emphasis>.</para>
<para id="corporate-mission" xreflabel="Corporate mission">The CentOS Project exists to provide The CentOS
Distribution. Additionally, The CentOS Project provides The
CentOS Web and The CentOS Showroom to support and promote the
existence of The CentOS Distribution, respectively.</para>
<para id="corporate-identity" xreflabel="Corporate identity"> 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
<emphasis>corporate design</emphasis>, <emphasis>corporate
communication</emphasis>, and <emphasis>corporate
behaviour</emphasis>.</para>
<para id="corporate-design" xreflabel="The corporate design"> The
corporate design is focused on the effective communication of
corporate messages. Corporate messages are all the information
emitted from the corporation to a target audience. In order for
such communication to happen, it is required to put the messages
on a medium available for the target audience to react upon.
These media are know as <emphasis>corporate
manifestations</emphasis>, because the corporation manifests its
existence through them. The specific way used by the corporation
to set their messages on different media is what the corporate
design is about.</para>
<para>The amount of manifestations a corporation uses to
communicate its existence may very from one corporation to
another. In the very specific case of The CentOS Project, the
following corporate manifestations come to mind:</para>
<orderedlist>
<listitem>
<para>The CentOS Distribution — This corporate
manifestaion is built from SRPM packages. There are SRPM
packages that make a remarkable use of images (e.g., Anaconda,
Grub, Syslinux, Gdm, Kdm, Gsplash, Ksplash, Rhgb, Firstboot,
etc.), packages that make a moderate use of images and
packages that don't use images at all. Also, there are some
packages that make use of text-based information that need to
be changed, too (e.g., release notes, eula, the welcome page
of the web browser, etc.), in order for The CentOS Project to
comply the redistribution guidelines of its upstream provider.
The CentOS Distribution corporate manifestation focuses its
attention on SRPM packages that use images in a remarkable
way, specifically those packages that contain branding
information, in both image and textual format, from the
upstream provider. This way, replacing image and text-based
files, we implement the corporate design of The CentOS
Distribution corporate manifestations.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>The CentOS Web — This corporate manifestation
exists to support The CentOS Distribution corporate
manifestation. The CentOS Web corporate manifestation covers
web applications used by The CentOS Project to manifest its
existence on the Internet. 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 contraditions when they
all are put together. These visual contraditions need to be
removed in order to comply with The CentOS Project corporate
structure guidelines.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>The CentOS Showroom — This corporate manifestation
exists to promote The CentOS Distribution. The CentOS
Showroom corporate manifestation covers industrial production
of objects branded by The CentOS Project (e.g., clothes,
stationery and installation media). These branded objects are
for distribution on social events and/or shops. They provide
a way of promotion and a route for commercialization that may
help to aliviate The CentOS Project expenses (e.g., hosting,
servers, full-time-developers, etc.), in a similar way as
donations may do.</para>
</listitem>
</orderedlist>
<para>The corporate manifestations above seem to cover all the
media required by The CentOS Project, as organization, to show its
existence. However, other corporate manifestations could be added
in the future, if needed, to cover different areas like building,
offices, transportation and whaterver medium The CentOS Project
thouches to show its existence.</para>
<para id="corporate-communication" xreflabel="The corporate
communication"> The CentOS Project corporate communication is
based on <emphasis>community communication</emphasis> and takes
place through the following avenues:
<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>The CentOS Chat (#centos, #centos-social},
#centos-devel on irc.freenode.net)</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>The CentOS Mailing Lists (<ulink url="http://lists.centos.org/" />).</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>The CentOS Forums (<ulink url="http://forums.centos.org/" />).</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>The CentOS Wiki (<ulink url="http://wiki.centos.org/" />).</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>Social events, interviews, conferences, etc.</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</para>
<para id="corporate-behaviour" xreflabel="The corporate
behaviour">The CentOS Project corporate behaviour is based on
<emphasis>community behaviour</emphasis> which take place in <xref
linkend="corporate-communication" />.</para>
<para id="corporate-structure" xreflabel="The corporate
structure"> The CentOS Project corporate structure is based on a
<emphasis>monolithic corporate visual identity
structure</emphasis>. In this configuration, one unique name and
one unique visual style is used in all corporate manifestations of
The CentOS Project.</para>
<para>In a monolithic corporate visual identity structure,
internal and external stakeholders 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: <emphasis>Hey! we are all
part of The CentOS Project</emphasis>.</para>
<para>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.</para>
<para>The CentOS Project, as organization, is mainly made of (but
not limited to) three corporate manifestions: The CentOS
Distribution, The CentOS Web and The CentOS Showroom. Inside The
CentOS Distribution corporate manifestations, The CentOS Project
maintains near to four different major releases of The CentOS
Distribution (e.g., the operating system), 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 created
for no release-specific at all, but for The CentOS Project in
general.</para>
<para>In order to produce the correct corporate structure for The
CentOS Project, we need to concider all the corporate
manifestations The CentOS Project is made of, not just one of
them. If one different visual style is used 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)?</para>
<para>Probably you are thinking, that's right, 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?</para>
<para>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 maintainance through time. Said that,
we consider that The CentOS Project corporate structure must be
consequent with such stability and consistency tradition, beyond
the work it might require initially. It is true that The CentOS
Brand does connect all the visual manifestations it is present on,
but that connection would be stronger if one unique visual style
backups it, too. In fact, whatever thing you do to strength the
visual connection among The CentOS Project corporate
manifestations would be very good in favor of The CentOS Project
recognition.</para>
<para>Obviously, having just one visual style in all corporate
manifestations for eternity would be a very boring thing and would
give the impression of a visually dead project. So, there is no
problem on creating a brand new visual style 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 brand 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 corporate manifestation be in front of
us. Such lack of uniformity is what introduces the visual
contradition we are precisely trying to solve by mean of themes
production in the CentOS Artwork Repository.</para>
</sect1>