Inform about Branding

The Branding Initiative has been brought to live by community members of several OpenOffice.org projects like art, marketing, website and user experience. On this page we want to inform you about our reasons to do so.

What does branding mean?

Branding is one of the most important secondary tasks inside a company (if you define the product as primary task). It 't goal is to raise awareness for the product (the brand), recognition in public as well as employee's identification with the brand.

For an open source project like OpenOffice.org branding means a crucial step on the way to professionalism.

People should recognize our product and our community by a consistent design, that transports our main messages on an emotional level. Even if they don't read the name, they should be able to recognize our graphical branding elements as belonging to OpenOffice.org, wherever they look at one or them.

Community members should identify with our project and the product. This goal can be supported by graphical means as well as by other activities like definition of common goals and working on basic positive attitudes and emotions OpenOffice.org addresses.

There will be a survey soon to ask the community members about what they think are the three most important positive aspects and attributes of OpenOffice.org. Based on this survey we'll be working on a consistent visual design.

What is visual design?

By visual design ....

Why should all appearances look alike?

Because ...

To whom it concerns ...

The community, product, any relations to the public...