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Competition for a LibreOffice Mascot

Java has the Duke, SUSE is known for its Geeko, KDE is going with Konqui, Krita welcomes you with Kiki, and Mozilla frightens the user with a Tyrannosaurus Rex. All major applications are known by a mascot.

LogoThe Document Foundation has a unique branding with a clear and nice icon which cannot change. Therefore, it is probably the right time to get a mascot for LibreOffice.

Metaphors

We have started by asking on the mailing lists some input about the concepts associated with LibreOffice.

  • Freedom/Openness
    • Dove like bird, through occupied by Apache OpenOffice (and disliked by some)
    • Hummingbird: Light, free, fast, with colors that remember also the LibreOffice colors
    • Dragonfly: is a beautiful animal with many colors which we can find all over the world, is a fast and agile flier with a robust body, and a symbol of courage, strength, and happiness (unfortunately, the dragonfly is used at DragonFly BSD and Opera Dragonfly)
  • Speed/Improvement
  • Intelligence
    • Owl: known for wisdom since the Greek goddess Athena, whose pet was an owl
    • Beaver (Castor canadensis): beavers are ingenious builders who can change the course of rivers, they are powerful patient doers despite their size, who can modify their living space in a few days
  • Cuteness / Seven lives
    • Louse/Virus: it irritates sometimes, but you can’t get rid of
    • Tardigrade (‘pudgy wudgie’): also known as water bears, they are adorable, and also perhaps the most indestructible creatures known to man
    • Rock-hopper penguin: it’s very cute with orangey-red-yellow tufts out of jet-black ears, they are impressively determined, despite the comedy-value of the way they waddle and bounce they achieve incredible feats of athleticism such as jumping higher than their own height from a standing start

Competition

The task is simple: design a new identifier for LibreOffice Community and ideally provide a name and a description to understand your idea. There is no restriction whether it’s a true mascot or just a symbol like Java’s Duke. You are also free to find other metaphors than those listed above.

LibreOffice has branding guidelines, for instance regarding colors, but you may also suggest an update there.

The design should be completely new, even if based on some initial artwork (in this case, the license of the initial artwork must be CC0). The design should be available in two colors (to reduce printing costs, if necessary), and in full color.

Results will be filtered by a commission named by the Board of Directors (BoD), and voted by the community. The final decision about the design and the name will be confirmed by the BoD.

Authors of the top three proposals will get the following prizes:

1st: Slimbook KATANA Intel i5 (https://slimbook.es/en/ultrabook-katana-en)

2nd: Nextcloud box with Raspberry Pi 3 (https://nextcloud.com/box)

3rd: Nitrokey Pro 3 (https://www.nitrokey.com)

Remarks: Winnings from competitions can be a taxable source of income depending on your state law. Legal recourse is excluded.

To share your proposal please use our Nextcloud instance https://nextcloud.documentfoundation.org/s/l58GED3Ngq92Rge with a clear identification of <date>_<author>_<name>.png (e.g. 20170629_htietze_grumpycat.png), or submit your artwork per E-mail to contest@libreoffice.org. You can submit as many ideas as you want, but we may refuse input in case of very close designs.

All submissions should be provided under CC0 to maximize their use by the community. Learn more about LibreOffice’ licensing here.

Please submit your ideas until 31th of August.

Proposals

So far we received a few examples.

© CC0, Andreas Kainz

© CC0, Nicolas Vrithoffe

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212 thoughts on “Competition for a LibreOffice Mascot”

  3. Pingback:LibreOffice lanza un concurso para tener su propia mascota – Cronovirales

  4. I like very much the hummingbird, he is light, free, superfast and colourful.
    For me, it’s the best choice :)

  5. I can’t draw, but someone please do an Armadillo or a HoneyBadger as the mascot please! Keep the reward.

  6. Should I include the text portion of the submission (name, description, idea) as a part of the image, or perhaps write it in the e-mail itself?

    1. Both should work; just make clear your artwork is properly assigned to your name. If you want to write an extended description, you better do that per mail to content@…

  7. What professional program has a mascot ?
    MS Office has mascot ?
    Gimp has mascot but photoshop hasn’t ; which one has pro image ?
    If you want to keep a serious image, keep a serious logo.

    1. @riton MS had Clippy… ;) (a bad example of mascot through !)
      I agree with you @riton, a mascot isn’t always a good thing for a professional product. But a mascot isn’t a logo and will NEVER replace it. A mascot is Tux for linux, a character that lives its own life without the product. I think it could be fun to design a mascot or a character that embodies LibreOffice.

    3. MicroSoft (or more precisely Windows 10) does indeed have a mascot. Her name is Touko Madobe and she was created to cater to the eastern audience.

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    1. Nice butterfly, I definitely like it. But please share via the official channels so that we have all submissions together. The LibO nextcloud instance is linked in the blog post together with an email address. Thanks for your work!

      1. >Hey, do you have any feedback ? ;)

        It’s a nice geometrical, low-polygon symbol. Will be a tough competition of the hummingbirds; yours is a sleeping beauty, kind of chimera with a robin.

        1. Thanks a lot !!
          I’m working on a mascot with more personality, like kiki or Konqui.
          Just to be sure : you need a mascot, right ? Not a logo ?

  17. I would use a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coelacanth. It is an prehistoric fish that just won’t extend. For edges we thought that it was extended, but it wasn’t. It is still doing well on remotes places in the ocean. This type of fish is also considered is an important species in history of evolution, because the fins are “made of bone”. (I’m sorry not native english, I couldn’t find the right words.)

    For me, the fish would represent a community that never will extend, no matter what others think or say. It also shows reliability. No matter what the fish will always be there. It probably will survive us.

  19. Pingback:The Document Foundation объявил конкурс на создание маскота для LibreOffice | Linux-House.ru

  20. Hallo Andreas Kainz,
    obwohl Dein Name für mich deutsch klingt, weiß ich nicht, ob du Deutsch sprichst, deswegen werde ich meine Meinung zu deinem Entwurf auf Englisch ausdrücken.

    Hi there, first sorry for my bad / poor English
    I love a lot LibreOffice. I like the flower bird of Andreas Kainz, but in my not so humble opinion LO is a big piece of software, we need also a bigger bird.

    What about an eagle or an owl? Would not this be a better idea?

    Office — owl — wisdom
    I love wolves, but they are not so peacefull :)

    2. Personally, I wouldn’t vote for a smiley. It has no particular meaning for LibreOffice and is annoyingly omnipresent. From the technical perspective it looks good, and if you don’t feel comfortable with Inkscape why not give Draw a chance? :-)

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  26. Hi Heiko,
    thank you for your comment. The problem is I am a design-minimalist, not a designer, but I will try to retouch it a bit, so that it become “more meaning”.

    I like LO because of its user friendly “old” interface, as oppossite to the stupid MS-ribbon :) This could be the secret, not so obvious, meaning of the smiley. A mascot can be everything possible not only an animal, depends on point of view.

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  30. @ Heiko Tietze

    I created these:
    https://wiki.ubuntu.com/One%20Hundred%20Papercuts/Branding

    Which inspired these:
    https://google.es/search?q=ubuntu+origami&tbm=isch

    I liked to create a mascot for you, but I think that the CC0 license is too naive. Except if there was some reason I didn’t know of for using that one, I would rather prefer the CC-BY-SA 4.0 license. So all derivative work is warranted to be libre.

    I think that non copyleft licenses are perceived as a cheap non paid workforce alternatives to higher quality paid software. Instead of that my purpose is to make libre content the standard, so I liked to see my work only used in libre works.

    1. Nice geometrical, low-polygon design. The font doesn’t look like the default (https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Marketing/Branding#Fonts) and your blue to green gradient conflicts with the primary color. Finally, your bird is in heavy competition with the others.
      Footnote: My comments here are personal opinion only and absolutely not relevant for the competition. Just to make that clear :-).

      1. I have taken logo from official website and just removed the document icon. It would be helpful if any color pallet is given.

      2. I changed colors, taken from libreoffice branding page. Please let me know i am going in right direction or not. i am designing other animals too so it would help me.

        1. >Please let me know i am going in right direction or not.
          Hard to say if this logo has the potential for being appreciated by the community as the LibreOffice mascot. While your colors are from the standard palette now, the design becomes a bit boring. What I meant was basically the unpleasing combination of turquoise to chartreuse gradient together with the default green. But it’s all up to your creativity.

    2. Sorry to say this, but I dont like it. The best I have seen here is the first proposal of Andreas Kainz. Your bird, looks like a geometrical version of it and I dont know anything about the color-theory, but it looks really bad.

  34. Hello! This is my version of the mascot. I think what the Dragon means a lot of great opportunities and that you can look at things from the other side. Find something impossible seemed to be something for us plain and simple. This talisman can be as a defender and guardian for Libue Office. I hope you enjoy it. Thank you for your attention

  36. I have made my submission via email to contest [ at ] libreoffice.org last saturday and don’t know if it has been received or not. This days with spam and blacklists… I am worried it may haven’t been received by you.

    Can you confirm it?

    Thanks in advance,
    Néstor

    1. >Can you confirm it?

      Yes, we received a first submission and a follow-up correction from someone with your name.

  38. I went through some suggestions, and I think they are based on pictures that are not under a free license or the original pictures are only re-colored. You will take this into account when choosing a mascot?
    E.g.: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/0f/2f/1f/0f2f1fd8c5d5d05a535ba3df8516e1d9.jpg
    http://www.flaticon.com/free-icon/butterfly-shape-outline-top-view_42250
    Or I’m knitting?

    Can I send more suggestions?

    Thank you for info.
    Best regards

    Petr Motycka

  39. Hi
    I’m not an expert. I uploaded two images which I wanted to combine, but didn’t know how to. A secretary bird supposed to hold a feather. call her Maggie.
    I’m a Manjaro user.

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    1. Also, I think the Ibis has something to do with scribes (check Thoth) in ancient egypt (maybe it should apply to Scribus, I don’t know if there is a mascot for that project).
      Well, I like mascots, though keep it professional. I have a personal experience installing a GNU/Linux distro back in 2004 and the user was really insecure of seeing so many mascots and also some colloquial language in messages.

      1. More on the Secretary Bird, some links:
        These are not my designs and I think I am not submitting any, since I am not a designer and don’t have the skills, I really will like LibreOffice to have a mascot, so I am just giving you guys some ideas.
        I think this bird:
        – As it has several feathers in its head, each one could have a color: blue, green, orange, yellow, purple for writer, calc, impress, draw, base… add more colours if necessary.
        – Also it can have an elegant outfit, as the body feathers are black and white.
        – Cool name such as: “Belo” or…
        – cute one:
        https://image.shutterstock.com/z/stock-vector-vector-cartoon-cute-animal-mascot-funny-colorful-cool-illustration-of-happy-secretary-bird-484034803.jpg
        https://image.shutterstock.com/z/stock-vector-secretary-bird-vector-illustration-71074303.jpg
        https://image.shutterstock.com/z/stock-vector-secretarybird-isolated-on-white-background-vector-187597694.jpg
        https://image.shutterstock.com/z/stock-vector-vector-illustration-of-a-secretary-bird-sagittarius-serpentarius-598830962.jpg
        https://image.shutterstock.com/z/stock-vector-cartoon-angry-secretary-bird-ask-a-question-it-should-be-in-questioning-pose-volume-vector-386777944.jpg
        https://image.shutterstock.com/z/stock-vector-cute-funny-cartoon-style-coloring-secretary-bird-illustration-568212760.jpg

        Anyway, this is my take, if anyone like this idea, feel free to submit it yourself, as I have mentioned, I am not into designing or drawing, I just wanted to share my thoughts.

    1. You are as ‘native’ as everyone else. Be very welcome whether you live in Iran (explicitly because of your ancient culture), in the U.S, or at the north pole. However, I’m not sure if there are import restrictions for computer technology, in case you win the competition. But we will find a way.

  52. i love to see all of the submissions in the comments it lets me know what i’m up against :D good luck to everyone ;)

  53. Hello! I am Rony Velazco sent my proposal on July 19th, to contest@libreoffice.org but the box does not give any reception response, just in case, I also uploaded it to the cloud, I hope it has arrived by some means. Thanks for any reply.

    1. I really like your Owl, Andrea. In my opinion, it’s the best submission of those submitted to the thread up until now! :)

    3. Nice one, Andrea! Expressive and cute. It is also one of the best executed proposals in terms of design.

      Be sure to make it also work in B/W (or two colores), as it is a condition asked by the team.

      1. Really thanks Jorge!! ???
        Yes, I think it work in B/W.. now I’m not at home.. when I came I’ll upload here ?

  58. I’m not an artist, so my rendition of a chameleon is rudimentary, at best. However, I chose the Chameleon for several reasons:
    Insight
    Change
    Stability
    Patience
    Curiosity
    Sensitivity
    Perception
    Resourcefulness
    I think it personifies LibreOffice.

  60. I really like the owl design that Andrea posted, but it looks a lot like other owl logos out there (Google “cute owl logo” and you’ll see what I mean). Is there anything you can do to differentiate it?

  61. Hello!

    I just sent in my submission via email, as well as the drop-box to be safe. Could you confirm you received and were able to open it okay?

    Thank you!
    Chase

    1. Confirming your submission though I have no idea how to deal with ai files. Have neither tested with Draw, Inkscape, or Krita nor checked anything else yet.

  67. Hi! I wanted to share an idea with the community before officially submitting it. I’m wondering whether the design will be used as submitted or it will go through a graphic and conceptual refinement process. Are you looking for finished artworks or for ideas?

    Anyway, here is my proposal, taking a different approach (it’s not an animal):
    https://www.dropbox.com/s/c33rnczav65l3wb/libro_libreoffice_01.png?dl=0

    Its name is “Libro”, and it’s cute and smart. It means “book” but also sounds like a variation of “libre”. It takes inspiration from the application icons, and as it’s not a fixed drawing but an expressive character, it could create different interactions with the user in the website, the documentation or even the applications: warnings, help, application status, etc. As a “book”, it can be a manual, a diary, a set of documents, an essay, etc. resembling some of the uses of LibreOffice. Its arms and legs are made of paper, and it’s also full of paper sheets that appear around the borders when it gets excited.
    https://www.dropbox.com/s/c33rnczav65l3wb/libro_libreoffice_01.png?dl=0

    I still have to review the colors to fully adapt them to the branding guidelines. I’m also trying to give it perspective to show more clearly that it’s a book, but for the moment the result is not good enough for my taste, and I still like better the simple, flat look of the previous link.
    https://www.dropbox.com/s/v33gltgkq0mnz7g/libro_libreoffice_02.png?dl=0

    Do you like the approach? Any suggestions on how to improve it?

    2. Hola Jorge, debido a tu nombre supongo que hablas español. Por desgracia he de decepcionarte, no me gusta tu intento, ni siquiera es un “mascot”, pero esto puede depender de punto de vista. Mi propuesta tampoco lo era. De todos modos, yo borraría las piernas y brazos que no quedan bien. Fíjate en los trabajos de otros, hay algunos mucho mejores.

      Saludos de Rosario, Argentina

      1. By submitting your proposal to this competition you agree with CC0 license. Nothing else to be done from your side.

  72. Hi, I’m currently working on a design for Libreoffice’s mascot. May I ask your reason of the mascot must be licensed under CC0, but not GFDL/GPL/LGPL/MPL/CC-BY-SA, just like Libreoffice itself and its logo? The Libreoffice community doesn’t need CC0 to use the mascot, if you look at Wikipedia, CC-BY-SA and GPL work for them pretty well.

    My concern is, as a mascot, they are supposed to be part of a project’s trademark — so far as I know, that’s the way many other FLOSS mascots were treated. By CC0 the mascot, the design is made available to be used as ANY OTHER PROJECT’s MASCOT. How is the mascot still represent Libreoffice in that case?

    1. I’ve just read CC0 FAQ and it answered my question. Sorry for asking too early without researching thoroughly! I can totally accept CC0 now.

        1. For example, when a shop uses a CC0 LibO mascot as the base of their promotional material, they can do it without distracting people with the unwanted credit line. If someone draw a fanart of a CC0 LibO mascot, they can determine what license they use for that fanart. I think this is a higher state of freedom.

          CC-BY and CC-BY-SA, by their nature, is a deal breaker because they introduce legal obligation to credit the original artist, which brings in unnecessary message for the end-user’s purpose. On top of that, and CC-BY-SA also force people to give away the result. CC0 frees the user from that obligation and thus enables (and encourages) the user to use them more freely.

          It’s understandable to question: “why is giving people credit feel so hard”? I think the answer is that our world (people’s average moral level) is not there yet. It implies that our society cannot give us true security with its current level of productivity, and many feel the need to give themselves more protection even if it means to violate other people’s interest.

          Back in the renaissance, there was no copyright, and it was a better time to discuss and share our knowledge. Copyleft is a legal weapon to force people to share, but it’s still not the ideal free state. I think the free culture movement aims to reinstate a public-domain-all-time state.

          I think free software tools are built to help people to unleash their creativity, and therefore using CC0 is the best, the most consistent way to realize this objective.

          1. I think CC0 means “you do not have to credit me”, but you still can if you so desire. However, according to CC0 FAQ, “you still can’t use my CC0 works as your trademark unless I say so”. That’s why I think it’s OK that free software mascot is CC0.

            Honestly, I personally don’t want to be credited all the time, if it’s awkward to do so, I’d rather they just use the artwork. All and all, I think it depends on what your initial motivation is. I just want to help, so as long as it helps, it’s fine. The red-line is, however, some one claim that they created my work, in that case, it’s a lie and it’s not okay.

          2. Indeed it seems more appropriate for an art program like Krita to mention the artist than for LibreOffice :P
            But I was still curious about this CC0 thing since it’s the first time I see it.
            Thank you for the explanation :)

  73. Hi!
    Just wanted to check.
    I submitted my entry via NextCloud and Email.
    Is there a need to attach the entry in the comments here as well? (I can see a lot of people doing the same)

    1. If you send an email to the given address without error message you can usually trust in the process. Otherwise it’s helpful to tell the who, when, what, where etc. you want to have verified.

    1. Sorry for uploading the wrong one..its none other than “Libo” the Rock-hopper penguin, who is willing to be the mascot for Libreoffice..

  78. Sir, Mascot is different from Logo right? I am bit confused with some of the submissions…so please give me an advice.

  81. The hummingbird looks good, but it should have a flat graphic style. If you advise yourself from a marketing expert it is better.

  85. Hi,
    My name is Tyson Tan, I’ve uploaded my LibreOffice mascot proposal and emailed a copy to you. The pictures were big and my network condition has been unstable, may I ask if you have received and can open them without damage? Thank you!

  87. Hello all,

    Here is my humble attempt. She is called Atra – short for ink in latin [atramento] :-).

    http://imgur.com/a/BXso1

    Thanks for the opportunity. I submitted it through nextcloud, too. Comments are always welcome.

    Thanks,
    Akash Kodela

  88. Hi
    shall i include a separate description regarding the RGB colours used and features of the mascot as a separate png in the submission. That is: png of mascot in colour,
    png of colours used, png describing features and line drawing of mascot .

    Or do you want me to only include one png of the mascot?

  89. Hello, I’m commenting here to ask whether my submission has been received? I realize that no error messages means it is likely fine, but I would like to double check here regardless. Thank you for the opportunity!

  91. Hello! My apologies for bothering with my worries, but I was just wondering if I actually managed to submit my entry correctly and if you all received it on your end? I submitted under the name of Yakra, and…. well… was wondering/hoping that I didn’t end up sending/uploading it to the wrong place!

  92. Hello, I’m commenting to check if my entry was received. I submitted through nextcloud and email just to make sure.

  96. Sorry to bother, just commenting to check if my submission got sent correctly and if the licensing was ok. I wasn’t really sure how to mark it as CC0. Is it just a statement or did I have to do something else?
    Thanks.

  98. “The design should be available in two colors (to reduce printing costs, if necessary), and in full color.”

    Does grayscale count as 2 colors? Thanks and goodluck everyone.

  100. Hi! I sent yesterday my design. But I need to verify if I sent correctly. I live in venezuela, and internet its slow and sometimes dont work. Sorry for my bad english.

    Please accept it.

  104. Submission phase has ended now. We received almost 300 images (including who asked for confirmation). Thank you all for the awesome proposals! Next step will be the community voting.

  106. Community voting? I think that os not good idea. Will win who has more friends, not the best.

    In my opinion, the best way is a jury made up of the most prominent members of the community.

    Regards.

    1. > Results will be filtered by a commission named by the Board of Directors (BoD), and voted by the community. The final decision about the design and the name will be confirmed by the BoD.

      It’s right there in the original blog post. Keep in mind that the final decision isn’t made by the community, but by the BoD.

  107. In the event that it is decided by popular vote. It is best to raffle gifts between participants. After all, the best prize is to have your design as a mascot of libreoffice.

  109. Hi! I submitted a proposal a few days ago by email. But now, after reading the comments I’ve noticed you’re asking to submit proposals by email and uploading it to Nextcloud, but the description of the competition says proposals have to be submitted to Nextcloud OR email. Is it ok if I just sent my design by email and didn’t upload it to Nextcloud?.

    1. Hola. Según entiendo las propuestas para participar se envían al correo, pero para compartirlos con la comunidad se suben a Netxcloud.

      Saludos.

  113. About the decision you will report in this article? Can I work after the end of the competition if it does not suit you?

    1. Of course you will get informed about the results. And you are very welcome to work on design topics independently from this competition.

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