SJB creates/adopts a new ePub logo
By Steve Jordan
OEB (epub) logo created by Steve Jordan
For quite some time now, fans of the Open E-book format, OEB, or ePub, have been begging to see some serious branding and marketing of the OEB format in public and commercial circles. It is the feeling of many that pushing the brand out there will get more people in-line with ePub, which is already on the way to becoming an international e-book format standard.
However, no branding, promotion or logos have been forthcoming from the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF), creators of ePub. This has left many of us OEB fans seeking ways of contributing to the effort of branding ePub, and being the design-minded person that I am, I have been toying with a brand logo for the OEB format for a while now. My work has finally resulted in a logo which I will start using on SteveJordanBooks.com, wherever the ePub format is offered.
The two main elements are the clearly iconic book pages, and the circle which partially encloses the book. The circle also happens to emulate an “O”, for “open,” the first word in the official format name of Open E-book, or OEB. However, the circle also iconically (albeit abstractly) represents a portal or container, enclosing or encapsulating what is inside… the electronic “container” for the book. The book page clearly extends itself from the container, suggesting availability and readability from the container. And finally, the container itself is “open” at the top, suggesting an open and unencumbered container which holds the book.
This logo is designed to have a truly international scope by avoiding letters or words common to any particular language… it is iconic, designed to be recognizable to anyone from any culture. Although some may wish to see the acronym “ePub” somewhere in the logo, it is not an absolute necessity for a logo’s purposes… in addition, the phrase “ePub” does not directly translate into a recognizable series of words in a language other than English, so it should not be used in an international application.
The design is intentionally timeless, neither presenting a futuristic or “electronic” look, nor an ancient look harkening back to leatherbound tomes. It could as easily have been designed a decade from now, or redesigned from a century-old logo. This also leaves the design open to reinterpretation in the future, while still maintaining its essential elements and form.
This logo is identifiable in its rendered two colors, or in a black silouhette, making it easily transferable to iconic use on solid surfaces (such as stamping), and it is clear at any size, making it useful for major or background branding applications. It can even be reproduced in a rough fashion, even quickly hand-drawn, and still be recognizable to others. All of this makes the logo easy to use in any medium, in any application, in any culture or language.
This logo is intended either to be the prototype of the OEB logo, or a device used to inspire others to create a logo. The intention is a final logo that will be acceptable to the public, commercial and business entities, the bookselling industry, and the IDPF. If, by that definition, the logo I have presented here is considered successful and desirable, I would grant its use as a worldwide symbol, abandoning all demands to rights or restrictions to the design. If, however, it is superceded by a logo of some other person’s design, which is in turn acceptable to all parties, I would retain the rights to this logo, to use as I see fit elsewhere. I invite comment (on this site or directly to me at SteveJordanBooks.com), debate, recommendation or endorsement of this logo by any and all interested parties.
September 13th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
“I would grant its use as a worldwide symbol, abandoning all demands to rights or restrictions to the design”.
Don’t: that would make it useless.
Note that an important reason why CDs worked as a music carrier was that Philips owned the trademark, made it valuable, and restricted its use only to discs and players that conformed to the standards that they had laid down. Thus the consumer knew that any disc with the Compact Disc Digital Audio logo would play on any device with the Compact Disc Digital Audio logo, and that (for example) any copy-protection that made CDs unplayable on some machines meant that those discs could not carry the logo.
If this symbol becomes valuable, it should similarly guarantee that any symbol-marked file should be playable on any symbol-marked player. This will prevent anyone from attempting an “embrace and extend” strategy to make the format proprietary, and it will prevent the growth of dialects of ePub that would fragment the market.
For example, imagine that Amazon decide to bundle an automated ePub-to-Mobipocket converter with the Kindle, but do not upgrade the capabilities of the Mobipocket display engine. This means (as is well documented) that only some ePub files will display correctly on the Kindle. If you place no restrictions on your trademark’s use, Amazon will be able to use it on their devices, and their market clout may mean that ePub no longer means what the IDPF defined it to mean but what one large corporation has decided it shall mean.
Or suppose that Adobe add a facility to their reader that everyone has been asking for (footnotes, perhaps?) and some publishers start creating ePub files with that facility, which cannot be read on devices that simply conform to the ePub standard. In that case, if you do not control the use of your symbol, standards-conforming readers will be squeezed out of the market because they cannot read all trademarked files; and incidentally the trademark will become worthless because it will no longer be a guarantee of interoperability.
September 13th, 2009 at 6:03 pm
Martin,
Good point. Truth spoken like a experienced veteran technologist. That is the same issue that has bothered me about the growing ebook industry where 800 lb gorillas like to improve on industry standards with their flavor of proprietary tweaks, resulting in reduced customer usability. As an industry, we need to grow up and adopt lessons learned and best practices that are proven from other industries.
I am all for the IDPF initiating an open contest to select an ePub logo that will further establish ePub as THE industry standard that readers can make buy decisions with confidence and comfort.
Thanks!
September 13th, 2009 at 6:34 pm
Martin is 100% correct. One of the most important uses of a trademark is to enforce standards. When you license the mark you have to agree that your product will meet the specified mark’s standards. When I used to do trademark licenses the most important part of the document was the appendix that defined exactly what standards, specifications, etc. the product had to meet before it would be allowed to use the mark.
September 13th, 2009 at 7:47 pm
Steve, it’s great to see your contribution to the ePub logo efforts. Is it possible the logo could actually show “ePub” after all? We don’t want to leave consumers guessing. Even outside the U.S., they’ll get the general idea; many people overseas are accustomed to things like this. By the way, I’m glad you use “ePub” rather than EPUB, which is too loud.
As for the trademark angle, I fervently want the IDPF to retain control and enforce the standards. Martin, Ted and Paul are right on the “mark.”
Thanks,
David
September 13th, 2009 at 9:54 pm
Guys,
When I offered to forego my rights to control of the symbol, that was because OEB is not my standard. It is that of the IDPF, and it is they who should control the very things you specify (I agree, the logo should only be placed upon products that meet the specifications, period).
@David: There’s no reason why the word “ePub” couldn’t be added to the logo, most likely outside the logo itself… but like other logos (Adobe reader, Mobipocket, eReader, MS Reader), I believe it is unnecessary, and after a time, the text could be removed.
Personally, I am trying to get into the habit of referring to the format as Open E-Book, or OEB… that, not ePub, is the actual name. After all, nobody refers to PRC files… they say Mobipocket. That is also why I wouldn’t want to attach “ePub” to the logo, as that is not its name. But that’s just me, and if no one else can wrap their heads around that, that’s fine.
September 14th, 2009 at 5:20 am
Thanks to Steve Jordan for his creative work on a possible logo for ePub.
There is a precedent for letters and words appearing in successful technological logos, e.g., the DVD logo has the letters DVD and the Blu-Ray logo says Blu-Ray Disc. The USB logo has the letters USB and the word “CERTIFIED”. The words “HI-SPEED” and “On-The-Go” are incorporated in the USB logo to designate variant versions of the base standard.
More controversially perhaps I think that a version number should be included in the ePub logo, because I do not think that the current standard is the final one. The ePub standard will evolve and the logo should also allow for a natural pathway of change. If the same logo is used for multiple versions of a standard then it can cause confusion.
September 14th, 2009 at 7:42 am
I suppose words and/or letters in logos can go either way. However, the logos you mention are also accompanied by symbols, and/or heavily stylized as to be very distinctive and recognizable, essentially turning the words into a design logo. It is the visual design, not the letters, that are most recognizable across the largest number of groups/cultures, and that should be the emphasis of any logo effort.
I’d hope that including version numbers wouldn’t be an issue here, not to mention the fact that they can be confusing. With any luck, most OEB-reading hardware would be backwards-compatible with earlier but compliant OEB versions… IOW, any future tweaks should hopefully be additive, and not making any fundamental changes to the underlying format. (Otherwise, you have a new format, don’t you?)
September 14th, 2009 at 9:07 am
Thanks for the response. First, I agree that the overall visual design of a logo is of primary importance, and I like the style of the logo above.
Second, if there is a new version of ePub then I hope it will be backwards compatible with previous version(s). But I would argue that a version number should still be depicted in the logo in either numeric or symbolic form.
Suppose a consumer has an ebook reader that can read ePub ver 1.0, and he or she visits an ebook store and selects an ebook formatted in ePub ver 2.0. Suppose further that the ebook reader cannot handle ebooks formatted in version 2.0. The consumer would probably be very aggravated if the only guide during purchase was a misleading ePub logo that did not discriminate between versions.
I agree that version numbers can be confusing. Also, they can be ugly when slapped on to an elegant logo design. Yet, the omission of version numbers can lead to even greater confusions. It might be possible to construct a logo that gracefully allows for variations reflecting version numbers.
September 14th, 2009 at 9:24 am
Point taken. Possibly a set of white dots embedded in the body of the circle… one for version 1, two for version 2, etc, would provide that detail while keeping the design simple and cross-culturally understandable.
September 14th, 2009 at 1:29 pm
I think it a beautiful logo and wish it could be adopted forthwith.
d
September 14th, 2009 at 3:46 pm
I agree: it is a gorgeous design.
A few years ago I was looking at some ebook book covers, and a handful stood out as exceptional. “Who did these?” I wondered. … It was Steve Jordan. He is immensely talented.
I would like to see the letters EPUB somehow integrated into the design. One day, EPUB may become famous enough, like Paris Hilton and PDF, so that the name will not be necessary.