Background information
Company name
Snowglobe
Overview
We're looking for a new logo for the Snowglobe Viewer, produced by a community coordinated and led by Linden Lab. Snowglobe is a desktop application for accessing Second Life, the leading 3D virtual world environment and one of the largest hubs of user-generated content in the world. The Snowglobe Viewer is based on the source code from the open source Second Life Viewer, but differs in the following respects:
* Public development - Snowglobe development happens in the public, with a core of developers from different locations and employment affiliations all sharing write access to the source repository
* Faster release cycle - Snowglobe Viewer releases happen more quickly than Second Life Viewer releases
* Experimental features - the Snowglobe Viewer contains many features not yet available in the Second Life Viewer.
See http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Snowglobe for more information about the current project
More information about our current logo can be found here:
https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Snowglobe_logo
Description of the organization and its target audience
A broad set of the audience that uses Second Life. Second Life users represent a broad cross section of the general population. Many are interested because they are creative, and like to build new things. Others are looking to meet other people and attend in-world functions. Still others are interested in shopping and discovering new things. Many people make a living inside Second Life.
Snowglobe will tend to attract Second Life Residents who are more adventurous and willing to try a new viewer in the name of getting a better experience in Second Life.
Content details
Requirements
Emotional Requirements:
* It needs to be fresh, light and visually appealing
* It needs to be welcoming, evoking a sense of community and personality
* It needs to make people think of a snowglobe in some way
* It needs to have a professional, finished look
* It needs to be distinct and original
Other thoughts (NOT requirements. These may be mutually exclusive, and an attempt to satisfy everything below along with the above requirements will almost certainly fail):
* It should have a hint of mischievousness. Not all out rebellion, stick-it-to-the-man punk or power-to-the-people Soviet-retro, but more Bugs Bunny playful mischief
* A nod to Citizen Kane
* A nod to the sentimentalism represented by the typical snowglobe
* Incorporation of a Hippo (see http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Hippo for more)
* A tie back to Second Life (e.g. the cube) would be good
* It would be nice if it could somehow convey what makes Snowglobe different than the main Second Life Viewer
* There's no requirement that the new logo be anything like the existing logo
Mechanical Requirements:
* Cannot infringe on anyone else's intellectual property (trademark, copyright or other)
* Needs to work in a variety of contexts (dark background, light background)
* Needs to reduce to recognizable icon form. This will be the icon we use on Windows, Mac, and Linux versions of the viewer
Update: 2009-08-10 11:55am PDT: Please use "Snowglobe", not "Linden Lab" in the caption text.
Update: 2009-08-11 12:14pm PDT: People may have taken the "it needs to say 'Snowglobe'" requirement too literally. What we meant was "it needs to make people think of a snowglobe", not "it needs to have the text 'Snowglobe'". The requirement was changed to reflect this
Update 2009-08-12: We should have mentioned - it will be very important to see a desktop icon version of this, because that is where the logo will probably be seen most. Sorry, it's our first contest! We'll probably run another one as needed to also get the smaller icons, but this is important for the overall design.
References
Attachments
Contest deliverables
Logo
Final files
If you use fonts that require a license, confirm with the client they're ok with it. For licensing reasons, it is better to provide your client with information on how to acquire the font rather than providing the actual files.
Text in logos should be converted to outlines.