More About The Logo

History of the C2 Logo

The PortlandPatternRepository logo was installed and announced April 3, 1995. The original rubber stamp artwork was scanned, decimated and dithered so as to minimize image transmission time over our then 14.4 kb network connection. The announcement was caught by the internet archive ...

http://web.archive.org/web/19961129191826/c2.com/ppr/about/changes.html

Apr 3, 1995 We have a new logo. Titled Paths of Change, this original work was executed in rubber stamp, an appropriate medium for a pattern repository.

The original scan was shrunk some more and redithered to make the logo used by this wiki, the now primary component of the repository. It is my wish that the logo be used only to identify content on this site.

Lorenzo Gatti's work

LorenzoGatti was kind enough to polish up the logo of this site for me. He didn't realize the original was intentionally imperfect. Still, I am thankful for his efforts and offer his work for viewing here...

I'd be happy to host a gallery of variations if others would like to try their hand at stylizing this image.

The original of the image

The original is a scan of an image I made with a set of stamps my children played with at the time. The icon is intended to be symbolic ...

the stamp itself -- patterns
the alignment -- work by hand
the fading scan -- impermanence of that work
the dithering -- our work's rendering by computer

I was reading about the Japanese Zen aesthetics (WabiSabi) when I made the icon. That influenced both wiki-wiki and the icon I designed for it.

Legal Notice

Legal notice: I have not protected the image by trademark or copyright. However, it is my wish that it not be used publicly except on this site. Thank you. -- WardCunningham

For trademark info, see http://www.uspto.gov/main/trademarks.htm; the following FAQ seems reasonable as well: http://www.ggmark.com/guide.html

Usage creates a trademark. By using the logo, you have in essence trademarked it. See the woman suing Trump for the phrase "You're Fired!". She is a pottery maker who has been using "You're fired" for years in Illinois. Great pun. Also a great endrun around Trump. He cannot use "You're Fired!" in Illinois, as her previous usage reserves the phrase as HER trademark.

Yes, but trademarks are for goods/products; is Ward's image being used with a product? (Similarly, service marks are used with services)

Ward, since the logo is your creative work I believe you will find that you do indeed hold the legal copyright to it, even if you never officially registered it. -- PrestonRickwood

The copyright to the image, yes, under the Berne Convention, which is a different matter than use as a trademark.

Wrong: Hi! Just put the Logo in a cover, and Snail-Mail it, Registered Mail, to yourself. [paragraph deleted]

No, absolutely not, that is an urban legend.

As a print-maker myself, I must interject that use of the stamp does not confer copyright. I think it works a little differently in the US, but in Canada the designer would hold the copyright on the image, and the manufacturer would hold the copyright on the stamp (artifact) itself, unless they contracted otherwise. Mind you, I suspect the designer, if she/he knows about its use here, would be thrilled to see their little offering being put to such good use! -- DeborahHartmann

In any country that is signatory to the Berne convention, including both the U.S. and Canada, simple creation of an artistic work is sufficient to give copyright to the creator. This is completely unrelated to any question of who may own a physical artifact of any sort. In general, in most countries, that would simply depend on the terms of the contract with the manufacturer, so always read the fine print.

Script applied to Lorenzo's image

Here is a script applied to Lorenzo's image in four (then two) quadrant rotations. Refresh your browser for alternatives.

Awesome! Can I see it with the color icons too? Sure, though I can't figure out an easy way to make the colors match with more than two tiles.

http://c2.com/cgi/tile?i=/wiki/ppr/color/&n=2&r=112

Variations by DavidWall

I noticed that the tile was made up of four pieces, so I separated them, created some variations, and then wrote a little Perl program to randomly combine them, using user-specified weights. You can see the results at http://ylatis.com/cgi-bin/tile (dead link) if you're interested. -- DavidWall

I love it. -- WardCunningham

Reminds me of this book: http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/books/2012/11/computer_programming_10_print_chr_205_5_rnd_1_goto_10_from_mit_press_reviewed.html

JayAlvarez? has also been influenced by the same rubber stamp set which he had as a child and has been saved for him by a thoughtful mother. He has sent this composition our way. It is made with an alphabet of shapes captured in the font used to render a text appreciating her.

See http://www.limbicfish.net/the-winding-path/

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