InCommon Technical Discussions

[David Shafer <>]

FYI, there might be some confusion between image backgrounds vs. page 
backgrounds. Specifying a background color for your logo is, I think, pretty 
normal, though most brands will also ensure their logo looks good with a dark 
or light background, and will produce derivative versions of such. Many logos 
simply won’t look good with a transparent image background on an arbitrary 
page background color, so many brands don’t leave it to chance, and they 
specify the image background color in all cases, using a border to separate 
it from the page background if necessary.

In terms of dimensions, one data point may be social profile images. Nearly 
every brand (and every InCommon participant) already has a square profile 
image they use for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. If a brand’s logo isn’t 
already a square, then they’ve no doubt created plenty of square derivations.

Here’s a run-down of the popular social media sites and the profile image 
sizes (in pixels) they use, from a post by HubSpot. Note they’re all squares 
(except Snapchat, omitted).

Facebook: 180 x 180
Twitter: 400 x 400
Google+: 250 x 250
Instagram: 110 x 110
LinkedIn: 400 x 400
YouTube: 800 x 800
Tumblr: 128 x 128

(Original: 
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/ultimate-guide-social-media-image-dimensions-infographic)

And a couple examples of the logos in action on those sites (picking on IU 
again):

https://twitter.com/IndianaUniv
https://www.facebook.com/IndianaUniversity/


Dave

-----Original Message-----
From: 
<>
 on behalf of David Langenberg 
<>
Date: Monday, November 13, 2017 at 1:36 PM
To: "Farmer, Jacob" 
<>,
 Nick Roy 
<>,
 
""
 
<>
Subject: Re: [InC-Technical] InCommon Baseline Expectations Metadata 
Requirements

    I appreciate the position you're put in, but does your UX person realize 
that, no, they in fact don't get to control the background of the remote 
website here no matter how feet-stampy IU gets?  Given what you've said it 
sounds like they'd argue that you
     MUST not provide a logo rather than have it possibly show up in ways 
they won't approve.  That said, the facebook guidelines are reasonable and 
probably where we need to go & just accept that there's gonna be some "My 
First Webpage".  The alternative I guess
     would be to update the baseline standards to require or at least 
STRONGLY recommend a white background where logos will be displayed.  That 
way at least the site devs will be on notice about it & can make their UX 
accommodate the limitation.
    
    
    Dave 
    
    
    --
    David Langenberg
    Asst. Director, Identity Management
    The University of Chicago
    
    
    
    ________________________________________
    From: Farmer, Jacob 
<>
    Sent: Monday, November 13, 2017 1:24:49 PM
    To: David Langenberg; Nick Roy; 

    Subject: RE: [InC-Technical] InCommon Baseline Expectations Metadata 
Requirements 
    
    We hold ourselves to the branding standards quite strictly. In addition 
to our self-guided compliance, there is an group that monitors compliance at 
the university
     level and a group that coordinates it at the IT level. Intentional 
non-compliance is not something I would want to consider.
     
    As for the rest, two responses:
    1)     
    It’s a standard and I’m obliged to meet it simply because it exists. We 
(IT) expect others to meet IT standards and it would put us in an 
uncomfortable position
     if we elected to ignore the standards that other parts of the 
organization consider to be important.
    
    2)     
    Not controlling the background has practical usability impact: The white 
version of our logo looks pretty bad against beige; the red version would be 
pretty
     hard to see if it were rendered against OSU’s red, MSU’s green, or 
UMich’s blue.
     
    I want to stress that I am not arguing a hypothetical use case – I asked 
our User Experience Officer, who is the authority on these topics for IT, and 
he
     is telling me that IU must have control over the background to meet 
requirements. So I’m presenting this as an IDP operator who seemingly will 
have to choose whose rules to ignore.
     
    I’m also sensitive to the “My First Webpage” concern you mention and I 
certainly don’t want to discovery service to be a visual mess because icon 
providers
     are careless. But I also have confidence in a designer’s ability to make 
a pleasant-looking icon that retains a non-transparent background when 
required. The guidance Facebook provides re: solid background seems like a 
compromise solution on this point.
     
    Jacob
     
    From: David Langenberg 
[mailto:]
    
    Sent: Monday, November 13, 2017 1:45 PM
    To: Farmer, Jacob 
<>;
 Nick Roy 
<>;
 

    Subject: Re: [InC-Technical] InCommon Baseline Expectations Metadata 
Requirements
    
    
     
    Branding standards are nice and all, but I wonder how strictly you'd be 
held to maintaining them in practice.  I imagine the brand folks would vastly 
prefer the IU logo look nice on my non-descript-beige
     background than have it look like My First Webpage from 1997 because the 
rules say "must be red or white background"?
     
     
    --
    David Langenberg
    Asst. Director, Identity Management
    The University of Chicago