Research about new Poppy Ergo identity/logo

[JeromeG]

Hi everyone!

Since the begening of the week, I am working on a prospective new logo for the Poppy Ergo Starter. I would like to share it with you to recieve some constructive comments or new ideas you can have.

First of all, I is interesting to show you the fisrt ideas I have had, so you can easier understand my reasoning.

So this proposal was the first:

I have decided to reuse the shape of the “head” (this kind of cup) and the “arms”. Then we got 2 sketches (n°2 and n°5) we can “improve” to the right and to the left by adding some details or modifications.

But, this is not really in agreement with the Poppy graphical charter that is more geometric.
However I have tried to use it with the Poppoy Education logo, just to see how it can look:

You can also see some hypothesis I made about the typography (It would be better to use “Sofia Pro”, but I do not have it on my PC). I have though about how we can replace the “O”.

If we combine manual typography with the “sketch version cup”, we got this:

I have also tried a flat design version of the cup:

Finally nothing really suitable.

But all of this was before Matthieu told me that Poppy got a new beauty.

Like I said, the Poppy new logo is more geometric so the “sketch version” can’t match.
See it yourself:

(The first at the top left takes the shape of the arms with the cup). By the way, here are some hypothesis taking the shape of the cup, and adapted to the hexagonal shape of the logo.

After that I have decided to think about a minimalist version of the logo.
I have drawn the cup like if he was isometric, so we got that :

And then we can imagine many possibilities of color associations:

We can mix it with the “P” of “Poppy”, or use the contour to make a new “P”:

Or make something more minimalist, like “wired”:

Exploring this wired hypothesis, we got this logo added to the Poppy Education original logo (a grey version, and a green version):

Personally I think we have something really cool, because the cup is isometric as the cube and it is not disturbing. Moreover I found the association between the minimalism and the “wired” style really nice.

I would be glad to read your opinion about what I could change, or improve!

Just as a “teaser”, I just post this one to show you the new way I’m working on. It is based on the arms shape, more precisely the extremity (with the screws). The juncture of the two arms allows me to get a pretty cool icon we can choose to incline as we want!

The last one at the bottom right get the extremity of the drilling made by the lasercut.

So, I thank the more courageous of you who read this loooong topic until the end.

I would really like to have a return from you guys, to know how we can work on it, or if you are agree with my reasoning.

Have a good evening!

[jgrizou]

Welcome @JeromeG!

What you present is really interesting and I find it all aesthetically pleasing! The way you present the evolution of ideas and sketchs is useful.

My preference go for the minimalist cup like design in the Poppy hexagon, especially the following (personal taste):

What about the above one with the top contour too?

I think that ‘cup like’/‘lampshade’ is more distinguishable than the last arm based logo you propose. The lampshade is, to me, what differentiate Ergo from other robotic arms.

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Having robot differentiating attributes in the hexagon shape could be a nice way to unify robots identity/logo. I am wondering how having Poppy Humanoid head inside an hexagon would render?

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Another question is about the color/theme we should use. ErgoJr is quite oriented towards education so the Poppy Education logo/color make sense. But if someone want to use the robot for science or art, should he change the colors for the science or art colors? Or should we use custom colors/patterns for each robots?

This might create confusion. Maybe reusing the colors or the hexagon is not the best because of this. This is not clear to me at all, I am just starting a discussion here.

[JeromeG]

Thank you @jgrizou! I didn’t introduce myself, I’m 22 and I’m studying in product design. I’m in internship with @Matthieu so that’s why I’m here, and I’m glad to participate to this project with you guys.

I’ll try to answer you in the order of your questions.

If I understand, you’re wondering how it can look if we use these logos with a contour? Before trying I have noted that the white contour would be mingled with the white part of the cup, so we could have replace the white colour of the cup by another colour, then it could be not really appropriate.

@jgrizou

I think that ‘cup like’/‘lampshade’ is more distinguishable than the last arm based logo you propose. The lampshade is, to me, what differentiate Ergo from other robotic arms.

Yes, you’re right, my bad. This logo can correspond to other robots, it’s too confused. But maybe we could find another use of this one? I though a kind of icon in an app interface, just an idea…

@jgrizou

Another question is about the color/theme we should use. ErgoJr is quite oriented towards education so the Poppy Education logo/color make sense. But if someone want to use the robot for science or art, should he change the colors for the science or art colors? Or should we use custom colors/patterns for each robots?

I don’t know… I think using colours for each utilisations (sciences, art, etc) is simpler than defining new colors for each robots. Because it should have many many different other colours, and we could take the risk to confound them.

Maybe we could use the same principle that “Poppy”. We just have to put the first letter of the robot’s name in the hexagon. But, I’m wondering some things:

1. That could get the Poppy logo less important (if other logos look like it), and it is not our goal.
2. We should draw all of the letter of the alphabet, and it is too complicated for a thing like that, there is necessarily simpler to do.
3. With the “E”, we loose the isometric aspect, because of the honrizontal crossing bar of the “E”.

But why not, let’s see:

This could be the Ergo logo.

And these could be the Ergo logos with the Starter or Junior reference.

Another thing, we can use Education logo, and precise the name of the robot like this.

I just though about the relief of the hexagon shape, and I’ve noted that we can imagine it protruded or receded. We can see it from the inside or the outside. And for me it looks like the Cura interface, you know.

And it is really appropriate because we use 3d print to print robot pieces (like the “cup”).
If we change the colour value, we can get an impression of relief. And simply put the cup like an object on a 3d print plate. Like if he just had to be print.

And I think we can do something really interresting with this principle, cause we just have to found and define one “master piece” of one robot, and represent it in isometric before putting it on the “3d print” plate (the hexagon). So it could be appropriate to all of the other robots. I think this proposal is the most universal.

More ideas?

[Matthieu]

@JeromeG

And I think we can do something really interresting with this principle, cause we just have to found and define one “master piece” of one robot, and represent it in isometric before putting it on the “3d print” plate (the hexagon). So it could be appropriate to all of the other robots.

This is a f**king good concept

To go further …

Could you test it with all colors (yellow, blue, red,…) instead of red nuances ? Just to see if we could have a more usage-free dynamic robot logo ?

Could you put this “3Dprint” logo on a same page with the Poppy one ? Indeed, I wonder how we could use it if there is already the Poppy logo aside. Isn’t too many hexagons ? The minimalist logo was very elegant associated with the poppy logo.

[JeromeG]

Thank you @Matthieu!

@Matthieu

Could you test it with all colors (yellow, blue, red,…) instead of red nuances ? Just to see if we could have a more usage-free dynamic robot logo ?

I tried many combinations of colours to get the perfect one.

First I tried to put the colours randomly, just to see how it could look, with one rule: to have the green “poppy” on the top of the cup, and the colour of the other colours on the bottom like that:

So from this point I made some hypothesis:

But it is such a too easy way, and we can’t really justify how we put the colours and why.

After that, I have noted that the colours (strangely) look like to the Google colours

And since 2014, Google established Material Design in their app interfaces. Please take a look at this article. Personally I read all the pages so much it is fascinating…

Among the methods Google uses to do material design, there is one interresting thing.

Note how they process to create their icons. Here is a video in which we can see they use real paper to build solid icons. They dispose pieces of paper to craft icons, and put a spotlight on it, in a real photo studio! This is to know exactly where could be the shadows, and to perfectly redesign it on a vectorial draw.

So I said to myself “Hey man why not crafting icons with paper?”. I will do it soon, but for the now I first have to define a shape, and to dispose the colours to have a coherent thing to work on it.

What is Poppy? Poppy is a community that supply robots mainly for art, education, science & technology.
So we have the green “poppy” at the center with the four other colours that surround it. Let’s see:

Now imagine these planes are faces of a box. So we can fold it up.

Now we just have a simple box we can pivote (quarter turn by quarter turn).

Next we just have to delete the two inconvenient faces to uncover the “floor”.

Now we have our “3d printer”, we have to put the 3d printed piece on it. As I said earlier, I wanted the top of the cup to bed green, but now the floor is green too, so it could be uncomfortable to have the same colour twice.
So we have 3 possibilities to replace the green top of the cup by another colour/style:

Make the top of the cup lighter or darker give the impression that it is filled and not empty. Or the real “cup” is empty so we have to choose the best way to represent it, and it is to apply a gradiant. It is really appropriate because it takes one of the material design concept, which is to represent shadows on a 2D icon.

So, let’s see how it looks adapted to all the application domain (an important rule is that the colour of the cup can’t be on a hexagon that have the same colour).
First I will set the Art logo, and logically the other will follow in alphabetical order.
So I chose to put Art logo on this one.

Logically, the following hexagons should be placed like that.

Just have to complete!

Here we are! We finally get the fourth logos for the fourth application domains

Now we just have to think about a more general logo, that is not dedicated to a specific domain.
I chose to represent Poppy with the cup, so the cup is green. Or there are 3 remaining faces for 4 remaining colours. I decided to not use the “science” blue (the lighter than the two).

So here is a more general logo for the Ergo:

Let’s see how it looks on a packaging:

Here is the “basic” Ergo packaging.

There are respectively Art, Education, Science, Technology Ergo logos.

Finally here is a version of the packaging for an Ergo whose using is not defined. Note that the association of the four Ergo logos in square indirectly draw a new hexagon at the center in which we can inscribe “ERGO”.

That’s all folks! Soon I will build a paper model of this logo and shoot it just to see where the shadows appears. Maybe I will add it on the 2D logo, just to see how it can look.

Note that this principle can be adapted for every robot. It is an universal solution to represent each robot for each domain. We just have to take a representative piece of a robot, and put it on the hexagon after coloring it with the appropriate colour. For example we can easely imagine a Poppy Humanoïd head in isometric, with the eyes zone colored in yellow, for a Poppy Humanoïd that would be use for Art. It is infinite

Thank you for your reading, and I’m waiting for your reactions about it!

[Thot]

It is the first time I see an open source “logo” with all the story. A logo is somethink difficult to design. You have to try different shapes with different supports until the “coup de foudre”.
For your approach I had the “coup de foudre” at the beginning

[JeromeG]

Thank you @Thot, I’m glad you like it

I’ve just thought about a Poppy Humanoïd adaptaion of the logo, but I don’t know what to choose so I need your opinion guys.

First, I decided to choose the head to represent the Poppy Humanoïd, because this is what it represent the robot at best. These are some resherches about the style of the head:

So I chose to retain one of these (the third one) and to put it on the hexagon logo. Here is the example for the Art logo version:

I like it because it is like a 3d software display like Solidworks or any 3d software where we can see the polygons in details. Moreover it takes a cartoon appearence, I find the idea quite cute

After that, I talked about it with @Matthieu who gave me the idea to use only one colour, so I did it in the Poppy head:

(Note there is a very light gradiant from the top right of the head, to see the bulk better, compared to the first one on which there is no gradiant but flat colours)

Now I don’t know which one to choose! Because the both are cool… ^^

So I need your opinion to help me to decide which one we can retain (personally my choice easier goes on the white one, but it means nothing, cause I really like the other one too).

Thanks!

[jgrizou]

Both look good!

• White + One Color Visor
• One Color for all

Show results

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Out of curiosity, what software do you use for this? For example to draw the line cutting the head in halfs, do you work on the 2D drawing by hand or work on the 3D and project to 2D after?

[JeromeG]

I use Adobe Illustrator to draw all of the logo, but in fact, first @Matthieu gave me a PNG of the isometric view of the Poppy head he made on Solidworks. But the line you talked about was drown by hand on Illustrator.

[JeromeG]

What is the deadline of the vote? Can we say tomorrow 5 p.m?

[jgrizou]

Yes, today 5pm is cool, even earlier as I think it is pretty much done, we won’t have much more answers.

[JeromeG]

So considering the vote, the appearence of the head is the white one, with the colored eyes only.
So if everybody’s agree, we can definitely define it.

Thanks for voting