Round 1 of the voting for a modernized Eclipse Logo is now finished. We had an incredible 2128 people vote; a great response! Thank you.
Unfortunately, Houston we have a bit of a problem. The two leading design concepts (Logo 1 and Logo 2) really don’t fit the original goal of the task: to modernize the Eclipse logo, not create a completely new one. The existing Eclipse logo has a LOT of brand equity and recognition. We [I] just can’t give up on that and start with a brand new logo. It is not the responsible thing to do.
When I started this project I was thinking along the lines of what Ubuntu just did to their branding, some simple changes Any new logo needs to pass a very simple test: Any Eclipse community member should be able to look at the new logo and instantly recognized it is associated with the Eclipse open source community.
I’ve spoken with a couple of graphic artists. Some have said that Logo 1 is probably the nicest design and the fact that Logo 2 was on a dark background might have gained it more attention. Unfortunately, this still doesn’t mean they past the simple test mentioned above.
It turns out I made a big mistake with Round 1 voting. When people went to vote, I didn’t explain the criteria for selecting a new logo. I also shouldn’t have included in the vote logos that were not acceptable. Ironically, in the bug where we kicked off the project, a lot of discussion was spent on the criteria. In fact, Logo 1 has the fewest nominations and almost didn’t make it to the final 10. Remember we had over 200 concepts that were narrowed to 10.
So what is next to Round 2?
We are going to proceed to a second round of voting with a shorter list of candidates. Unfortunately, I have to disqualify Logo 1 and Logo 2 for the reasons above. This means Round 2 will have Logo 3, Logo 4 (existing logo), Logo 5 and Logo 6. I am also going to add Logo 8 since I personally think it is the best design. The colours need to be toned down but it is the what I had envision for a more modern Eclipse logo.
I realize this may not be a popular move. I apologize if people feel they have wasted their time. Doing an open vote for a graphic design was a risky decision but I still think it is the right thing to do for Eclipse. I hope to have the Round 2 voting up later this week. This time I will have much clearer instructions. 
