I’m proud to announce that the new identity for XMPP / Jabber is here! My friend Raja has done a stellar job creating the new mark. He really knows how to combine color and style into an effective logo. Of course it doesn’t hurt that I’m a sucker for a green-blue-orange combo. My own personal tastes aside, this new mark does a great job of conveying a much needed official face for the XMPP Standards Foundation. It’s great to see the amount of attention and appreciation that design is getting in the engineering-centric world of open protocols and open-source software.

I cornered Matt Tucker (our CTO and a huge advocate of XMPP) about the logo as soon as I saw it. He explained that the XMPP foundation needed to stand apart from the rest of the crowd. There is a tradition in the open-source/open-protocol realm where most logos are only afterthoughts (no offence IETF). XMPP/Jabber is a bit different from others in that they have a more structured and controlled standards body and wanted an identity to reflect that. Being an open protocol, they wanted the logo to feel open in nature. They also wanted something colorful. Jabber, Peter Saint-Andre’s parrot, provided inspiration in both the colors and the general wing-like shape.

I really think Raja’s done a great job conveying all of these ideas, while creating a mark that meets the many subtle requirements that go into logo design. It has a distinct silhouette. It is in part both an X and a J. It works equally well in black or white. There is a lot of movement, conveying the idea of communication. Can’t wait to show you guys what he’s been doing with us on the new Jive logo.

As a designer I never thought I would nerd-out on such a thing as an open messaging and presence protocol. As far as I knew, gremlins snuck into my computer and Pony Expressed them through some magical realm to suddenly appear on the screens of my friends and co-workers. Matt, Gato, David and the rest of the RTC team here at Jive has changed that. It’s great to see a bit of a design love given to those who make such magic happen.

Can’t wait to see what we can do with the XMPP website.

So tonight, around 10:15pm, a bouncing baby logo was born. Jive Software will soon be unveiling a new logo and holy cow, I can hardly wait. Sam and I have spent the better part of 3 months toiling away on a new Jive identity. As you can imagine it was full of frustration, irritation and pain. At the same time it has been the best identity design experience I’ve ever been a part of.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Never before have I worked for a company that so values disruption. I’ve never had a boss that not only tolerated but truly valued my nature to pick and poke at just about every idea or thought. And trust me. I poke a lot. There are no sacred cows at Jive.

And now I am bouncing up and down in my chair, dieing to show it off to everyone. The amount of elation I feel is incredible. Alas, we’ll have to wait until Friday, when the rest of the executive team finally gets to see it. They are going to love it. I can’t wait.

Just a little something to tease my friends over at Beer and Blog. Here’s to you Sam and Justin.

I spent far too much time in Photoshop, creating comp after comp after comp. I made the designs based off my old site, underwater themes, random color themes and more. I trawled through hundred of other sites, my eyes bleeding and my mouse-hand numb. There were all these sites that other people had made and there I was, not really doing what I had set out to do. Blog.

I decided enough was enough. What good would the site be if I wouldn’t use it? Would I really want to maintain my portfolio? Was I really convinced that I would keep a mini-blog up-to-date? I cut my feature list back to its barest essentials, namely the blog post, comments and some links to my friends. I picked a simple design that employed my favorite colors. Once I had a clear vision the fever took over and bit by bit the site began to take shape.

It only took a few minutes with (mt)’s helpful control panel to get my database setup. A quick hop over to Expression Engine and I had my blogging engine of choice. 50 minutes later I had the essence of my site completed. A few days of tweaking and polishing and finally I was ready to blog.

I really couldn’t be happier. I’ve decided to keep things as simple as possible and let the site grow organically. If I create enough posts to warrant archives and a search I’ll get right on it. If Twitter steals my soul and sucks me into it’s depraved voids then I’m sure a little blue bird might soon be perched here. Until then, I’ll just keep blogging away.