Wikimedia logos

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As of 4 July 2006, Incubator is in the process of a logo design competition.

External links

• [link]

Since the project's founding in 2001, Wikipedia has had six different logos. Two of these were temporary.

Early logos (2001-2003)

In Wikipedia's first few days, project founder Jimmy Wales chose an American flag as a place holder logo.

This was the logo originally used by Nupedia and used by Wikipedia until the end of 2001. It continued to be used after this time on Special Pages, such as search results.

This Wikipedia logo was designed by "The Cunctator", a Wikipedian editor. It won the first Wikipedia logo contest, which took place from November to December 2001. This original contest drew 24 entries, the last of which was the winning one.

The logo included a quote from Thomas Hobbes:

Man is distinguished, not only by his reason, but by this singular passion from other animals, which is a lust of the mind, that by a perseverance of delight in the continued and indefatigable generation of knowledge, exceeds the short vehemence of any carnal pleasure.

Puzzle ball logo (2003 on)

An "International logo contest" was held, to try and find a new logo for the project. After a two-stage vote, a design by Paul Stansifer (user:Paullusmagnus) won with considerable support. The English Wikipedia switched to it on September 26, 2003.

Stansifer's logo depicted a globe constructed of bevelled puzzle pieces, of multiple colors. Covered by text with links, the logo was to symbolize the continuous construction and development of the project.

A ratification vote was held soon after, to confirm community consensus. As a result, twelve direct adaptations of the design were created by members of the community.

One of David Friedland's (user:Nohat) modifications, occasionally referred to as the "silver ball" was soon chosen. The revision of Stansifer's concept removed the colour, and changed the overlayed text into one letter or symbol per puzzle piece. Both Friedland and Stansifer have assigned copyrights to the logo to the Wikimedia Foundation.

There was some controversy over switching the English Wikipedia to this logo due to several reasons, one of which was the fact Wikipedia's servers were flickering throughout most of the process.[link]

Before being released to all Wikipedias, the logo was lightened up slightly.

After the John Seigenthaler Sr. Wikipedia biography controversy, a column in The Times insinuated the logo as being a metaphor for the entire project. Rosemary Righter wrote "Just above the omega, at the point where, on human heads, they used to perform frontal lobotomies, bits of the jigsaw are missing."

See also

• Tessellation
• Jigsaw puzzle

The original Wikisource logo.

When Wikisource began as Project Sourceberg, the contributors chose to use an iceberg as the site's logo. Organizers contacted Dr. Uwe Kils, a German marine biologist, who gave what would become Wikimedia the rights to use one of his photo manipulations as a logo. Kils' manipulation was what the above and below water segments of an iceberg look like. The image was created by mirroring a second iceberg photo, and placing it below the primary image.

The logo was used because it is "the whole iceberg" and not just the tip which pokes over the surface of the water. The iceberg logo is also reminiscent of Sigmund Freud's use of an iceberg as an analogy to illustrate his concept of the unconscious mind. Iceberg also are known for their purity, preserving water for future generations, which fit with Wikisource's objectives.

When the project changed to become "Wikisource", numerous people in the community expressed their disagreement with the logo. Some expressed discontent with the content of the logo, feeling the imagery no longer relevant, that it was not consistent with the style of other Wikimedia logos, while others simply didn't feel photography of any sort a good choice for a logo. The debate ebbed and flowed,

One of the criticisms for the logo, that the Foundation didn't hold copyright to it, was ceased in May 2006. The copyright holder, Professor Dr. Uwe Kils, made a statement, "I give full copyright to wikimedia foundation to use it for any purpose whatsoever." This prevented it from being used on advertising or merchandise.[Cafepress: Wikipedia]

Redesign process

The logo suggestion chosen as the replacement.

Wikimedia participant Nick Moreau (username "zanimum"), then a graphic design student in Toronto's Humber College, decided to create a vector illustration of the Sourceberg logo, and submit it for comment.Wikisource: [Revising the "Sourceberg" logo], 29 October 2004—17 May 2005. Unwittingly, this sparked a large request for logos, creating an informal logo selection procedure by the end of 2005.Wikisource: [link] The voting procedure was not well-defined, and no closing date was set, causing confusion among the community.

In the meantime, Wikimedia's winter 2005 fundraiser used Moreau's logo in an illustration of the Foundation's projects. Wikizine, an independent email-based newsletter, also adopted this layout of logos for its subscription page.

A formal process was started in 2006.Wikisource: [New Wikisource logo] This formal process however, continued to draw more entries, expanding the pool of choices. It also had no defined set of rules, and led to continued, unstructured commenting. The process was not highly promoted, causing complaints that it was hidden. Each language had its own page, separating support and opposition. Much of the commenting was done by users with limited participation in Wikisource, if any.

Image:Wikibirdlogo.png|The Wikibird, to represent the "freeing" of text. Image:WikiSourceLogo-mtr.png|Logo using one of Wikipedia's puzzle pieces as an iceberg. Image:Wikisource logo suggestion - curved books - reversed.png|A stack of books, forming an "S" for Wikisource. Image:Spirit ws alt 01.png|Dubbed the "fishbowl", fire symbolised man's search for knowledge (see Prometheus), and water was "a well-spring of thought and creativity".

A small vote on the German Wikisource finally led to closure of sorts. That language's community decided to replace the existing logo (something most the English vote didn't even come to consensus on), and chose to use Moreau's logo as the replacement. On the English project's "Scriptorium", a discussion board, some question whether this meant each language would choose its own logo. The logo was soon implemented on other languages. Some participants questions the scrapping of the vote, Wikimedia president Jimmy Wales asked for positive improvement, and commented that "the idea that logos have to be voted on is just mistaken".

To date, Wikiquote has had four logos. The original logos contained the following quotations:

:And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more.

::(Erica Jong, (born 1942) American author and educator — [More quotes from Jong])

I don't know anything about music. In my line you don't have to.

:(Elvis Presley (1935 — 1977); American singer — [More quotes from Presley])

Image:Wikiquote1logo.png|Original Wikiquote Logo; active from 27 June 2003 - 25 September 2003. Image:Wikiquote2logo.png|Second Wikiquote Logo, an improved version of the first. Active from 25 September to 26 September 2003. Image:Wikiquote3logo.png|Third Wikiquote Logo; active 27 September to 22 October 2003. Image:Wikiquote4logo.png|Wikiquote's fourth and current logo; active since 22 October 2003.

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Footnotes