Hello Peter,
On 6/29/06, Peter Jacobi pjacobi.de@googlemail.com wrote:
At common's deletion discussion the question surfaced, whether the Wikimedia visual identity guidelines apply only to the trademark or also to the Wikipedia logo. Especially concerning the ''The logo should not be turned around or distorted'' part.
See: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Deletion_requests#Image:Bouncywik...
Thank you for bringing this to our attention.
The case is a difficult one, for many reasons.
First. At this stage, the Wikimedia Visual Identity guidelines do indeed apply to the Wikimedia Logo only.
Second. There is a fundamental difference between the Wikimedia logo and the Wikipedia logo in this that the Wikimedia logo still needs to be established in the mind of the general public. It represents the organisation, and the wish behind the Wikimedia Identity guidelines was to make sure that no derivation of the logo would be used to ends that do not serve the organisation, or for misrepresentation. The Wikipedia logo is well established and recognizable, even when transformed.
Third. The Wikipedia original logo has already been derived many a times, if only by being translated in all the Wikipedia languages, and historically for marking events, milestones etc. which makes it difficult to assert a "non derivative" policy for the Wikipedia logo, such a policy being in my opinion non desirable.
So this is my take on this:
At this time, there is no official policy concerning the use of projects logos, whether Wikipedia or other projects.
It is high time we did this.
My personal opinion on projects logos is that they *can* be transformed, as long as they are properly tagged with the Wikimedia copyright notice and *only* used in the Wikimedia projects.The Wikimedia logo however should at all times follow the present Wikimedia Visual identity guidelines.
However, this needs to be formalized, so as to avoid endless dicussions on the subject and legitimate questions such as yours.
I believe the communications committee should create a "visual identity and trademark use" subcommittee that will reflect on the best way to go about this and that will issue a general policy for the use and derivation of projects logos, use in projects/banners/advertising etc. So this is an appeal to the Communications committee.
It is also high time for a general logo and trademark use policy concerning non commercial use (ie. information, news, sponsors etc.) which is drafted somewhere but was never brought to a conclusion.
No need to say that I am very interested in being in that committee, I know Elian was also interested as we started reflecting on the matter together.
Hope this answers some of your question.
Best,
Delphine