Re: [Qemu-devel] Icon proposal: a carnival mask

["John R. Hogerhuis" <jhoger@pobox.com>]

On Mon, 2004-07-05 at 00:58, Jean-Michel POURE wrote:
> > Masks and clowns give me the creeps. And the Carnival thing won't make
> > sense to anyone in the U.S. Here, carnivals have more of a history of
> > being freak shows and in modern times, just a traveling bunch of cheap
> > imitations of big amusement park rides.
> 
> Personaly, it does not bother me to make a historical reference. The mask is 
> not a reference to Disneyland but rather to Venizia canrival, where people 
> change identities.
> 

No cheap shots about Disneyland please ;-) I'm no bigger a fan of Disney
than you, even though it's located in a neighboring city to me.

It doesn't bother me if you make a historical reference either. Though
*I* may understand something of the history of carnival, what I'm
telling you is that it won't play well in the States, if anyone cares
about that... what I'm describing to you is the American understanding
of carnival compared to the European one.

Masks giving me the creeps is just a personal thing I guess though I
know others feel the same way. Probably I'm in the minority there so
take it with a grain of salt. But the "laughing mask" is only ever seen
in the US in concert with the "frowing mask" and indicates something to
do with the theatre. Hard to connect that to QEMU.

> Also, the mask icon is quite different from other icons, in the hope that it 
> "flashes the eye" on desktops:
> http://www.freeoszoo.org/img/qemu_icon.png
> 

It is very high quality and distinctive, I'll grant you that.

> Anyway, if there is a potential misunderstanding, I will forget about 
> carnival. Does anyone share John understanding here?
> 
> > I like the Cheetah idea better, but I think there is Free Pascal
> > compiler that uses the Cheetah mascot.
> > Maybe a Gazelle, or a racecar or jackrabbit...
> 

> Thanks for your feedback. I will propose other logos in the next days, as I am 
> quite busy with the FreeOsZoo site.

Of course, I intended my response only as constructive criticism,
Jean-Michel. I think it's great to see work on a mascot/logo.

I'm surprised no response to the "emu" idea since it is an animal and
the emulator is Qemu. A Emu with racing goggles or something might do as
a mascot. Some people don't like "cartoonish" mascots for FOSS projects
but I think they really send out a positive message that FOSS is for
everyone, it's not some stuffy elitist thing that's out of anyone's
grasp. Tux is probably the best example of this.

I'll take "that's a stupid mascot" as a reasonable criticism from
anyone. Does anyone know of another free project using an Emu as mascot?

-- John.