The CentOS Project Corporate Visual Identity

The CentOS Project corporate visual identity describes the way The CentOS Project presents its visual existence.

1. Corporate Message and Tone

The CentOS Project strongly believes that the power of an open source project is in the community. If the community gets broken, the project loses its fundamental reason-for-being. Code alone does not make open source, and community is made through people treating each other with respect.

• Do not make personal attacks.
• Do not threaten people.
• Do not harass people.
• Do debate ideas on the merits of the idea alone.
• Do help each other keep a civil tone while remaining civil.
• Do treat others with respect.

2. Corporate Visual Identity Structure

The CentOS Project visual identity is based on a monolithic corporate visual identity structure. In this type of visual structure, the organization has one unique name (The CentOS Brand) and one unique visual style (The CentOS Motifs) in all its visual manifestations, internal and external stakeholders use to feel a strong sensation of uniformity, orientation, and identification with the organization. No matter if they are visiting web sites, using the distribution, or acting on social activities, the one unique name and one unique visual style connects them all to say: Hey! we are all part of The CentOS Project.

The CentOS Project corporate visual identity is updated with each new major release of CentOS GNU/Linux distribution —every 2 years, approximately. This implies designing a new visual style and applying it to all visual manifestations The CentOS Project is made of.

2.1. Visual Identity Domains

The CentOS Project visual identity structure is organized in Visual Identity Domains. The purpose of a visual identity domain is connecting visual manifestations using the project's brand and one unique visual style. Since the main product of CentOS Project is the CentOS GNU/Linux distribution, there is one visual identity domain for each major release of CentOS GNU/Linux distribution in order to remark its existence and visually connect the information descending from it (e.g., documentation, download pages, promotion stuff, etc.) In the following image, there are three visual identity domains. One for major release 5, one for major release 6 and other for major release 7.

The CentOS Project also has a number of visual manifestations that are common to all major releases of CentOS GNU/Linux distribution and don't fit in any of the visual identity domains created for major releases. Such is the case of web sites (e.g., the CentOS home page, the CentOS wiki, the CentOS forums, etc.), the promotion related to CentOS Project itself. To organize these common visual manifestations it is the Project's Visual Identity Domain.

In this illustration, the project's visual identity domain uses the gray color to express that it has an unknown visual style because it hasn't been premeditated yet. The visual identity domains related to major releases, however, use green, blue and orange colors to express that their visual styles have been well defined and are different one another. At this point, it is possible to perceive a project's visual identity domain without visual style and several manifestations of it with different visual styles each. In this example, the connection among visual identity domains is established applying one unique brand in all visual manifestations of them.

In the following image, however, the project's visual identity domain shares the same visual style of the last major release visual identity domain to reinforce the visual connection with it. This a reasonable choice because the last major release of CentOS GNU/Linux distribution is the prominent product of CentOS Project and it is acceptable to reduce the visual impact of older major releases of it when they result to be less prominent in time.

Observe the existence of different major releases with different visual styles here. This reduces the visual connection between the project and major releases inside it. Nevertheless, it is still an acceptable visual connection considering that it does establish a strong visual connection for all the components that make one unique major release of CentOS GNU/Linux distribution. In these cases, the only visual connection that can be retained between project and major releases is the project's brand. Using the project's brand to establish the visual connection is strong, but not as strong as it would be to have both one unique brand and one unique visual style.

As time goes on and new major releases of CentOS GNU/Linux distribution are published, the major release that is prominent today will become less prominent tomorrow. This fact is illustrated in the following image where the major release number 7 has passed to be less prominent than major release 8 —the last major release which took the prominent role in the visual scenario. See how the project's visual identity domain was updated to take the visual style of the visual identity domain related to major release 8. Also, how older major releases like 7 and 6 are no longer connected with the project's visual identity domain through the same visual style but one unique brand only.

3. References

The CentOS Project corporate visual identity is conceived with base on the following references:

Corporate Identity

Making Business Strategy Visible Through Design
© 1989 Wally Olins
Published by Thames & Hudson
ISBN: 9780875842509

Wikipedia articles about corporate identity.