It’s been five years since people spotted the last Ubuntu billboards in the wild. This time Mauricio Pretto sent a set of photographs of driving between the airport in Porto Alegre, Brazil and the Fórum Internacional Software Livre (International Free Software Forum) venue where Canonical and Ubuntu have a stand for FISL 2011:
Designing for a surface 7 metres × 3.6 metres is a little different than for on-screen or a brochure, especially as the Ubuntu/Canonical Brand Guidelines don’t have a dedicated section for billboards yet! The design here was originally sketched by David Cotter for the Computex Show, and updated by Emily Maher for the FISL request.
Mauricio noted that the billboard guides people to “Come visit Canonical and learn more about Ubuntu” in Portuguese:
Venha visitar a Canonical e conhecer as novidades do ubuntu!
FISL, Centro de Eventos da PUC, de 29 Junho até 2 Julho
Emily gave a bit of background about the further work that needs exploring before the brand guidelines (they are guidelines after all, not hard policy) can be extended to cover super large formats:
I had been discussing this with Marcus Haslam, the Lead Brand Designer at Canonical … we want to work a few more things out before creating a dedicated piece in the guidelines and we need to make some adjustments, for example, the large format dots do not translate well on to such a large format. The dots were almost invisible when viewed from below, so we need to run some more tests at various sizes of the dots next to text and get proofs so we know how best to advise people.
Emily felt it was perhaps a little soon to lay down definite guidelines; but on the branding side the guidelines still translate, with the photograph angle, colours and border-style still applying directly.
Has anyone in Brazil spotted the billboards yet, or would you like to see billboard templates covered as part of the resources in the The Brand Toolkit?
That’s exciting to see!
One observation… I note that both ubuntu.com and this billboard don’t feature the default wallpaper. I love the one that is featured, and I’ve been using it myself. Though it does seem to raise some branding questions. I thought part of the point of not changing the wallpaper much between the last two releases was to begin to develop a look that people will immediately identify as Ubuntu à la the Windows XP wallpaper that must still grace the desktops of millions of users worldwide. You seem to undermine that by not actually using it in promotional materials.
I agree, that computer looks like it’s running gOS Linux
From racing cars I learned to not put dark lettering on a white background – from far away light letters on a dark background is more readable. Look at how much the Canonical name sticks out on the bottom of the billboard, even though it is smaller than the lettering on top.
This photo is taken from a viewpoint closer than the average viewer will be. If you look at some of the other shots of these billboards they disappear in the sky, and the text is unreadable. The background color is too close to a cloudy day.
Better luck next time.
Hey! I’m proud of this!
I’m brazillian, I was reading the post then suddenly I noticed: “That’s Portuguese!”
Cool…
solicita o CD do UBUNTU
Oi Carlos,
Recebemos sua carta no escritório e em breve entraremos em contato.
Obrigado
Hi, I am Brazilian, I live in Brazil, not much to dominate the English language but counting on the help of my friend Google, lol.
I loved this site I’m browsing a half hour ago and am finding fantastic. This is a virtue that only free software can offer: transparency.
I turned fan, ha, and congratulations for the great job they are doing.
Goodbye.