SVG Ubuntu logo, Company/Project vector logos

[Sitsofe Wheeler]

I've just stumbled across this page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_talk:Ubuntu_Logo.svg on Wikipedia
which is debating whether the Ubuntu SVG logo should be pulled. It would
be good if someone from Ubuntu could weigh in on this one.

Additionally I just made this SVG Brief Logo Guide detailing some of SVG
benefits and pitfalls with regard to logos:
http://sucs.org/~sits/logo/brieflogoguide.svg (it doesn't look quite
right in Firefox but looks fine in Inkscape). This is rather important
because more and more logos are being turned into SVGs on places like
Wikipedia or winding up on sites like http://www.brandsoftheworld.com/ .
If you are running an open source program with a vector logo (or even an
open source company) you need to be aware that this is happening and
help people along. The common problems seem to be:

        Failing to link to the logo usage guidelines. Guidelines are not
        linked to or in some extreme cases no guidelines cannot be found
        in a Google search. This also ties in with a the difficulty of
        finding web pages detailing how to get official vector versions
        of the logo. An example of a good logo page is 
        http://marketing.openoffice.org/art/galleries/marketing/logos/ .
        
        Thinking that a vector version of your logo won't become public.
        If you ever put a vector form of your logo in a PDF you may have
        already lost. People are converting SVG logos out of any vector
        file they can find. In some extreme cases some people may trace
        a bitmap of the logo from scratch to make an SVG of it. At this
        point various dimensions or attributes might be missing or
        wrong.
        
        Details like trademarks, registered marks or copyright logos are
        vanishing away on reproduced logos. It makes sense for these
        details to already be in your SVG logo to reduce the chances of
        them going missing in duplicates.

        Current versions of the logo are too complicated for programs
        like Firefox to display. This can lead to recreation of the logo
        by third parties. It's worth checking that these recreations are
        faithful enough.

The vector logo problem is definitely not going to go away and I suspect
the best thing a company or project can do is ensure that the SVG
version of its logo is faithful enough for web and minor print use. The
special ink EPS files can still be kept private but I suspect those SVGs
will be seen in more as time (and monitors) move on.

-- 
Sitsofe | http://sucs.org/~sits/