Quendor

Marko remarked that it would be nice to have not only a color scheme for the yellow and blue LinuxTag colors but also a scheme that reflects grayscales. Here we go:

So we finally have a complete LinuxTag color scheme along with the scales of blue and yellow:

We’re now working on the basic visuals for ads, posters and flyers.

As mentioned before, we are currently working on a new marketing strategy for LinuxTag, not only for 2009 but far beyond, defining a solid groundwork for the strategic definition of the LinuxTag brand. This includes tangible marketing ressources such as templates, colors, fonts and all that is needed for a full corporate design but also an effective definition of what LinuxTag is - what LinuxTag stands for and - finally - why people attend LinuxTag. We need this to improve our strengths and work on our weaknesses.

One key momentum that we thought about was “what are the motivations that brings people to LinuxTag?”. What does the common visitor expect when attending the show? We isolated three main points on this:

1. Networking
   A lot of people attend LinuxTag to see all those guys from the FOSS world that they see frequently at events like this. To get in touch, to work together in person is an important aspect of LinuxTag. Each year, we have requests for rooms from development teams where they can gather to discuss topics they can’t properly address by e-mail. It is not uncommon that these people meet up for the first time in real life on LinuxTag.
   On the other side, many people come to the show to improve their business network. I do not exaggerate by arguing that LinuxTag is the European Open Source business event. If you want to do business in the FOSS field, you have to be there.
2. Knowledge
   We know from our yearly surveys that many people come to LinuxTag to hear conference talks. There was a time we underestimated the marketing value of the conference, but this was plain wrong: the conference is the main attraction of LinuxTag. All other parts are there only to support the conference, plain and simple. We want to provide world class know-how presented by world class speakers each and every year. This is the key point of the whole LinuxTag endeavour.
3. Lifestyle
   LinuxTag is part of the FOSS community. The geekdom is becoming more and more sexy and more and more people want to be part of it. LinuxTag brings this unique feeling that no other conference has. Try to get that fine sense of completeness, of technology insight paired with the deep friendlyness of the Open Source principle on your common IBM marketing sell-me-your-stuff event. And there is more: be part of it! Nowhere else it is so easy to talk to the FOSS people and contributing to the pool of ideas, concepts and - finally - software. Be there and be part of it!
   And, if you’re out on your business, there is no place like LinuxTag to find excellent staff for your technology venture because these people are attracted by the unique lifestyle LinuxTag has to offer. If you really want to find the knowers, be at LinuxTag.

So we have these three key spots of motivation that drives LinuxTag. We now have to package them into a concise marketing message, transform it to a nice presentation and there we go..

LinuxTag used the DIN font for years now. Originally, it was proposed by the people from newthinking communications, who were doing our advertising stuff then (hey, how are you, people?). It was and still is a nice font, but it has the problem that it is not freely available. We’re having a hard time licensing this stuff for all peope using it in creating our materials.

I think it is time for a change. Unlike then, a vast deal of quality free fonts are now available. Two fonts which I am currently looking at are “Delicious” and “Gentium”.

Delicious is a light, sans serif font made by Jos Buivenga. It is light, modern and perfectly legible for headlines and continous text.

Gentium is a serif font by Victor Gaultney and also legible for all uses. I my opinion, both fonts have a point. While Delicious is a light choice and more like our previous font, the use of a serif font has also some potential. I see more and more really good looking advertinsing designs using exclusively serif fonts.

I am currently working on the LinuxTag 2009 marketing campaign. One of the key efforts for this year is to establish a “stable” design base for LinuxTag materials (print and electronic) which can be used across the next years, relieving us from the annual re-design.

One of the first things I am looking into is the color scheme that we use. Our current scheme was more or less dominated by two key colors: a deep blue and a light yellow:

This mostly implies high-contrast designs where these two colors “clash” together. While contrast is one of the key design principles, it is not what LinuxTag tries to achieve at the viewer: we want to imply “harmony”, “working together”, “blending in” rather than “harsh differences”, “disjunction” or “isolation”.

So I tried to create two color schemes that involves more color steps, working together either on it’s own or in combination with each other. I came up with this possible schemes:

I changed the base colors a bit. The darkest blue now matches the logo color of Messe Berlin, taking away some subtle problems when printing in four colors. The deepest yellow is also a bit “more” yellow than the original color. All colors work nice together and imply a “light” and “dynamic” image.

FrOSCon 2008 was another great event, beautifully crafted and organized. Thanks to all the people organizing this remarkable show. I am already looking forward to FrOSCon 2009!

I think all my entries are now starting with a title containing an exclamation mark, but what should I say, it is really important this time.
As I am typing this, I am watching the keynote of FrOSCon 2008 held by no other than Andrew S. Tanenbaum, famous operating system scientist (and probably more famous because of his ancient flamewar with Linus Torvalds).
He is a funny guy, bashing Windows all the time, but he also has some really good points about the development of operating systems in general.

..and my Talk for FrOSCon is finally ready. I have to be at the tarent booth in exactly 7 hours. I think this will be a hard day *sigh*.

One of the best Linux and Open Source events is coming up this weekend: FrOSCon. Not only it is a great show, it is also located only about 15 minutes from my home.

I’ll also give a talk on my company, tarent, and how it is working for one of the few real Open Source companies out there. So come along and meet our staff!