InCommon Technical Discussions

[Scott Koranda <>]

Hi,

Bringing up this old thread on baseline expectations and logo sizes...

I think David is onto something and I had not appreciated it until this past week.

If we make the requirement that the logo is square and, say, 400 by 400 pixels (a discovery service can easily scale it down when displayed) then we can tell people (campus IdP operators in general) that the official logo already being used with the official institution Twitter account is a good choice. It probably has the benefit of already being approved for some use at least by someone official at the organization.

If you just browse to Twitter, search for the organization's page, and then right-click on the image and open it up in a new tab or window, you will find a nice logo. For example for Indiana University

https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/451102362581487616/Lcw0Ckk2_400x400.png

Or Brown University:

https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/443750757771132928/NSmiJugu_400x400.png

Or the University of Iowa:

https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/844284066622976001/U9FuGUX9_400x400.jpg

My new strategy when we have to replace a logo in metadata with our own version is to just use the one from Twitter. 

I like the idea of making the requirement easy to fulfill by pointing people at an existing service that is using their logo and telling them they can just use the same thing.

Thanks,

Scott K

On Mon, Nov 13, 2017 at 2:53 PM, David Shafer <> wrote:

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







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