Date: Tue 3/13/2001 1:12 PM
From: Tom Welsh ([email protected])
Subject: Authors to Protest Amazon
Neat article about Tux! ("The Story Behind Tux the Penguin," Mar. 13, 2001.) But, hey – what's this balderdash?
"But even after the penguin had been officially adopted and named,
not everyone was thrilled with Tux. Some developers muttered aboutthe "cutesy" logo – and they are correct in thinking it's inappropriate,
claims Tony Pagano, a former teacher at the School Of Visual Artswho taught corporate logo design."
"A logo is supposed to communicate something about the company orproduct. What does Tux communicate besides cuteness?" Paganosaid. "Tux makes the mental association of 'Toy' when people look atthe image in advertising or product packaging. It's misleading. Linux is not cute."
What utter crap. How can this guy Pagano have "taught corporate logodesign"? Logos are just little designs or pictures. They don'tcommunicateanything at all except that the corporations that own them are run bynotvery intelligent people with far too much time on their hands.
"Linux is not cute," says he! But Tux is cute. Pagano may have troublewith this contradiction, but I don't. Baloo in The Jungle Book is cute,
but real bears aren't. So what? There's a thing calledimagination.
