On Fri, 21 Feb 2003 20:33:56 +0100
Bernd Sieker <bsieker@freenet.de> wrote:

> On 21.02.03, 18:27:57, Thomas Runge wrote:
> > 
> > My girl friend reworked our poster and I find it quite a
> > big improvement over the "old" one.
> > Please have a look at http://core.de/~coto/poster1.pdf and
> > tell me (or her) what you think about it.
> 
> Quite nice!

I think it looks pretty good. She did a fine job. It's just a draft from a
volunteer though,  so I think we should all be as supportive  as possible.
FWIW, which is very little I'm afraid, I appreciate her efforts.

With some minor changes, this poster should look good enough to be an
official marketing tool. Who is supposed to make that determination?

> 
> I'm not sure I understand what the squares acress the images mean, I
> find them rather distracting.
> 

It might look a lot better at 300 dpi+ as opposed to 72 dpi. When displaying
fine lines, a few points wide, on low res devices rounding or intentionally
rendering the lines more heavily to make sure they are visible can make
then look heavier than they are in the final printed product. 

That said, if they are actually as heavy as they appear, a lower line weight
would probably be preferable. 

> Was there any particular reason for choosing such this red as the
> background color? The predominant color on the NetBSD web site is blue

The red is more likely to catch someones attention. At a show, that could be
a good thing.

It also has kind of a "retro-bsd" feel to it, which fits nicely since the
old-iron is at the top and the type face at the bottom.

That's "a reason", but perhaps not "reason enough". The argument about the
how the poster diverges from the website has some merit. Is there an
official "netbsd style-guide"? I would expect the answer to that question
is no. IMHO, divergence in the appearance of various netbsd marketing
materials is not near the top of the advocacy issue-list right now. I fear
that not enough people are even exposed to our materials that they've had a
chance to be confused yet. 8-)


> ...
> 
> > 
> > One question from her: We need better/bigger pictures/photos
> > if you want to print it on large scale printers. And yes, we
> 
> If the printer does a reasonable job of interpolation, I think the
> resolution of the images is adaequate, at least up to A1.
> 

I don't know my european pages sizes as well as a should, but isn't A1 a lot
smaller than a typical poster? Even so, photoshop, et. al. will do a better
job of expanding a bitmap image than a printer would "on the fly". 
[although some pc software for printing photos by themselves do a bang up
job of interpolation] 

The designer is correct in asking for best images available. That, or
abstract "line-art", e.g. like the daemon at the top would be best.
Unfortunately, using line art is much more challanging for the designer,
whois is volunteering their time. [also, with line-art the squares would
need to die]

> > need a picture for the security-part. For some unknown
> > reason, I don't feel comfortable with the blowfish for that ;)
> 

If it was sliced very thin and served with some good sake, I could go for
it. ;-) Otheriwse, I share in your discomfort.

> I could imagine just having an image of a padlock, this has come to be
> associated with "security", not only in https connections.
> 

how about a roll of duct tape. :-) [joke intended for US audience]

I can think of a few images that convey the notion of security. How about a
nice mean dog. A bulldog maybe? A a nice mean junk yard dog. We might have
to be carefull about infringing on someone elses trademark though. 

> > 
> > So if anyone is willing to provide one of these, please do.

perhaps the port masters could get some graphics from their hardware
manufacturing contacts? 

-- 
Harry Waddell
Caravan Electronic Publishing
-----------

"Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every
six months." - Oscar Wilde