Talk:Main Page/Logo Redesign
Contents
inspirational materials
Feel free to add to any of this. Use your imagination. Also check out the page about the [http://parts.mit.edu/wiki/index.php/Possible_iGEM_Logo iGEM logo design] and the [http://openwetware.org/wiki/Logo_and_Promo_Poster_Discussion OWW logo design].
concept grab-bag
Consider the principles of abstraction, functional definition, composability, modularity, insulation, and intentional design when thinking about the new logo. The Registry is a clearinghouse, a repository, a library, a bank, a set, a group, a catalog, a toolchest. Parts are defined by their function, modular, composable, components, with inputs and outputs, specifications and documentation, well characterized, like legos, designed to hide complexity; systems of parts may be considered parts themselves.
Engineering motifs
Hard hats, wrenches, circuit boards and diagrams and schematics, blueprints, nuts & bolts, gears, clockwork.
Biology Motifs
DNA, E. coli, pipetors, test tubes, gene network diagrams
Silly example of abstraction
For a more tangible example of the principle of abstraction, imagine that you inherit a vast supply of lego bricks. You start a business of selling prebuilt lego kits to parents of children with no aptitude for engineering. You simply get the design for the desired lego kit and then spend your time building it. As your business booms, you start to realize that many of the designs you are commissioned to build share identical subcomponents - for instance, many of the car designs call for the same assembly of lego bricks to attach the wheels to the car's chassis. You realize that thanks to the fundamental modularity of lego, you could save lots of time by outsourcing the construction of these subcomponents, allowing you to focus on the details of connecting them together. The collection of biological parts in the Registry is a bit like the collection of parts you would find on your workbench at your lego business workshop - lots of prebuilt modules that are reused often, many of which may be composed themselves of other prebuilt modules, along with a fairly complete chest of fundamental lego bricks of all shapes and sizes that are used to connect your functional lego modules together.