Hey, a sekrit projekt has just gone live into the blogosphere. The Hugo Awards Marketing Committee (of which Kevin and I happen to be members) is running a competition to find a logo for the Hugo Awards. Of course we already have the rocket, which is absolutely iconic, but with each year’s base being different, and thousands of different photos of Hugo trophies in existence, there isn’t a single image that sticks in people’s minds and says “Hugo Award”.
So what we are looking for is something that can be put on web sites, can be used in magazines and newspapers, and can even be turned into a sticker that can be put on the cover of books as happens with the Newbery Medal. Who knows, one day we may even see the logo on movie screens.
Full details about the award are available on the official Hugo Award web site. If you are planning to enter, please check out the official rules and submission guidelines. As this will produce something that we intend to register as a service mark the legalese got a bit excessive, but we’ve tried to keep it under control as best we can.
The other great thing about the contest is that we have some really awesome judges. Representing fandom is the fabulous fan editor and graphic designer, Geri Sullivan. From the art business we have Irene Gallo from Tor, and Chip Kidd from Random House who was once described as “the world’s greatest book-jacket designer”. And finally we have a certain Mr. Gaiman who has won several Hugos and is far better publicity for the awards than anything the HAMC can do.
Obviously we’d like this spread far and wide. In particular I’d like to get the word out to awesome graphic designers. Being a fannish non-profit, WSFS can’t afford a huge prize (though many thanks to the folks from SCIFI for helping with the cash prize). However, the visibility that the winning design is going to get will be significant, and being known as the person who created that design will hopefully be very good for someone’s career.
This is a great idea. I hope that at some point WSFS will decided to have a permanent logo for the Worldcon itself. It helps build the brand for a Worldcon.
Tom: I expect that creating a general Worldcon logo would be at least ten times more difficult than the Hugo Award logo, and this process that you saw go public today has taken years of work to get this far. There’s a real iceberg here of behind-the-scenes stuff about which I don’t want to talk, but it hasn’t been the easiest thing I’ve ever done.
I think individual Worldcons would consider the creation of a general Worldcon logo to be an unwarranted attack on their sovereignty, whereas the Hugo rocket design is enshrined in the WSFS Constitution. It would be as if WSFS tried to dictate that the coventions were no longer allowed to design their own bases, but would have to follow a standard design.
Great competition, really exciting. I’m on it!
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