Publisher's Brand Emblem: Difference between revisions

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A brand is roughly equivalent to a logo. For the purposes of the GCD, some minor variations of logos are ignored.
# The name of a brand that involves text should begin with the text read in the most logical
 
order across the emblem. If it is possible to read it left-to-right,
At the current time, multiple brands should be recorded separated by a semi-colon and a space.  This will allow us to separate these into distinct brands in the future.
top-to-bottom (or right-to-left, etc. depending on the language) then it should
 
be read that way. If the ordering is ambiguous, then any ordering that captures
Examples:  "Dark Horse; Lucas Books" or "DC; TSR"
the words is acceptable.
 
# A brief description of distinguishing graphical elements may be placed after the name, in square brackets. If there are versions of the brand emblem that differ only in the graphical elements, then the description *must* be present for *all* such brand names.
At the current time, we are only recording publisher's brands (see discussion below).
# Letters that are part of the logo should be captured as well, to distinguish "i [Image]", "Image i" and "Image", or to distinguish "i [Image]" from some other brand using an "i" emblem.
 
# If an emblem involves a particularly stylized letter, it may be included in the graphical description rather than as part of the text name. The goal should be clarity. For instance "Image [under lower-case i]" is more clear than "Image i".
At the current time, we are only recording brands on the outside of the item - front cover, back cover, spine, dust jacket, flaps.
# If an emblem has no typographical elements, its name must consist entirely of a brief description inside of square brackets.
# The choice of words in the description, order of words in the name (when ambiguous), and the placement of certain typographical elements in the name vs description are necessarily subjective. Changes should not be made without clear justification. Approvers must reject (or send back) changes that are poorly justified or do not appear to offer significant improvement.  
#*Example of a good justification (for changing "Image i" to "Image [under lower-case i]"):
#**"It is not always immediately clear that the thing above the word "Image" is an "i". Describing the letter and it's placement is more likelty to make people certain they are choosing the right brand."
#*Example of bad justifications (for changing "Image [under lower-case i]" to "Image i"):
#** "'Image i' is more concise" [reject]
#** "'Image i' should be enough to figure it out" [reject]
#** "I saw another brand with a name and a plain letter, so this should just be 'Image i'" [reject]
# Both graphical and textual changes should be captured by separate brands. The following exceptions are the only cases when a change or variation can and must be ignored:
#* When a brand appears in multiple colors concurrently, or rotates through color schemes too frequently to establish an identity with any one color scheme, changes in the color must be ignored. Example:
#** "Captain America: Patriot" uses the typical red Marvel logo on issue #2, a silver version on issue #1, and a greenish version on issue #3. These are not distinct brands. http://www.comics.org/series/52430/covers/
#* Informational elements that are attached to, adjacent to, or somehow mixed with publisher brand emblems, such as issue numbers, URLs, descriptive elements such as "limited series", "variant edition" or "one shot", must be ignored.
#** If the URL is an integral and consistent part of the brand, it must be included. URLs or ".com" tacked on to existing emblems are not integral parts of the brand. A brand launched from the beginning including a URL within the emblem, or reworked and relaunched to integrate a URL, would have the URL as an integral part of the brand.
# Brands that are integrated into series names (DC Special) are still brands.  
#* Integrated brands that otherwise appear identical to existing brands should be treated as instances of the existing brand.
#* Integrated brands that appear different beyond their simple attachment to a series name should be treated as separate brands. However, the series name should not become part of the brand, nor should there be a separate brand for each series unless some other element of the brand changes per series. For instance, DC brands that used different background shapes with different series are separate brands, but plain DC letters in a white circle (attached to a series name or not) are all the same brand.
# Multiple brands should be separated by semi-colons.
# Additional examples sent to the GCD policy list during the discussion leading up to this ballot where the discussion participants agreed on the example usage should be incorporated into this definition. Examples where the participants did not reach an agreement may be included if the existing disagreements are resolved by discussion or vote.  


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Back to the [[Formatting Documentation]]
''An extended example''
 
* A semicolon separates two brands that appear on the same cover
* A slash may be used to separate two bits of text that appear on the same logo (for instance, the main text and a smaller tagline incorporated within the logo).  This is not a strict requirement, but rather is an option if running all of the text together makes it hard to read properly.
 
As an example, Chesler books before and after the war used "World's Greatest Comics" as their most prominent logo.  However, the smaller text within the logo box above the main text changed.  Pre-war it was "A Dynamic Publication" while post-war it was "Harry "A" Chesler, Jr."  So I put that after a slash because:
* I wanted to put the most prominent part first so they'd sort next to each other and people would see both
* because it makes you realize there are two distinct bits of text within the logo
 
'''World's Greatest Comics / A Dynamic Publication'''
 
'''World's Greatest Comics / Harry "A" Chesler, Jr.'''
 
I explain this in more detail the notes.  Additionally, the first version always appears along with a smaller line of text identifying the Chesler syndicate.  This I put after a semi-colon because it's clearly a distinct emblem:
 
'''World's Greatest Comics / A Dynamic Publication; Harry "A" Chesler Features Syndicate N. Y.'''
 
Which is a heck of a long name, but accurate.  See http://www.comics.org/publisher/112/brands/ for how these are used in practice.
 
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''Some info from recent discussions that might be useful (or not!)''
 
My suggestion is that we have three fields: Publisher's brand, Distributor's brand, other brand. That way all of this information can be captured, but the distinctions among them are respected. At some point if we can have a search for "any brand" that looks in all these three fields, perfect.
 
# A Publisher's Brand is something used by comics publishers to identify and name a group of series in some way not related to a specific storyline or event.
# A Distributor's Brand is something used by a distributor to identify series it distributes.
# An Other Brand is something used to associate a series with a non-comics entity such as a TV show or toy line.
 
It just seems to me that these are very different types of things performing very different functions. To group them all together under one heading fails to provide adequate resources for research for the end user. To leave the field in a "know it when I see it" state fails to provide adequate direction for the indexer and the approving editor.
 
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Hi folks,
 
So this has been one of the more interesting polls.  Only tracking publisher brands was only fully supported by one person, and preferred by another person who as OK with a different option.  So I think it's clear that we need to cover other things.  That leaves the question of cover it all with one field, or do something else?
 
"Something else" was preferred by a nearly 2-1 margin.  Not enough to be called a consensus, but I'd like to point out a few things in its favor:
 
# Jim Van Dore put forward a very clear a clean-cut way to capture this in three fields.  Those extra two fields are almost trivial to implement, as they're a straightforward copy of what we already have, except non-publisher brands are not attached to publishers.
# Jim's proposal captures more data, and is consistent with the general goals of precise data capture already discussed for New Fun.
# Implementing the "all in one" approach means that the folks who would like the extra data of the separate approach are denied that data.  Implementing the separate approach has no significant negative effects on the folks in the "all in one" camp (you can still search them all, and have two extra drop-downs is not a significant problem).  Counterarguments to this point are welcome.
 
I am strongly inclined to go with the separate approach based on Jim's proposal.  Since there is no official consensus and polls are not binding, if anyone really wants to raise a stink and force an official decision they can do so.
 
If someone forces an official decision on this, then the current Brand field will be treated as only accepting publisher's brands (which, I'll point out, is exactly what the documentation says on the issue page).  If folks accept Jim's proposal, if I have time I'll toss in the two fields tonight.  If I don't have time tonight, they'll get done in the next release (I don't want to add anything that big after tonight, and I'm only considering adding this because it's no new logic, just replication of existing well-tested code).
 
----
 
For the purposes of this discussion, a "publisher's brand" is something denoted on the cover with a logo or tagline that is directly associated with the publisher (if published by multiple publishers, with any of the publishers).  A brand that is not a publisher's brand is one that is not directly associated with the publisher, such as the logo of a television studio, sponsor, or other external brand with which the publisher has some sort of arrangment.


[[Category: Formatting Documents]]
[[Category: Formatting Documents]]

Revision as of 16:30, 13 November 2010

  1. The name of a brand that involves text should begin with the text read in the most logical

order across the emblem. If it is possible to read it left-to-right, top-to-bottom (or right-to-left, etc. depending on the language) then it should be read that way. If the ordering is ambiguous, then any ordering that captures the words is acceptable.

  1. A brief description of distinguishing graphical elements may be placed after the name, in square brackets. If there are versions of the brand emblem that differ only in the graphical elements, then the description *must* be present for *all* such brand names.
  2. Letters that are part of the logo should be captured as well, to distinguish "i [Image]", "Image i" and "Image", or to distinguish "i [Image]" from some other brand using an "i" emblem.
  3. If an emblem involves a particularly stylized letter, it may be included in the graphical description rather than as part of the text name. The goal should be clarity. For instance "Image [under lower-case i]" is more clear than "Image i".
  4. If an emblem has no typographical elements, its name must consist entirely of a brief description inside of square brackets.
  5. The choice of words in the description, order of words in the name (when ambiguous), and the placement of certain typographical elements in the name vs description are necessarily subjective. Changes should not be made without clear justification. Approvers must reject (or send back) changes that are poorly justified or do not appear to offer significant improvement.
    • Example of a good justification (for changing "Image i" to "Image [under lower-case i]"):
      • "It is not always immediately clear that the thing above the word "Image" is an "i". Describing the letter and it's placement is more likelty to make people certain they are choosing the right brand."
    • Example of bad justifications (for changing "Image [under lower-case i]" to "Image i"):
      • "'Image i' is more concise" [reject]
      • "'Image i' should be enough to figure it out" [reject]
      • "I saw another brand with a name and a plain letter, so this should just be 'Image i'" [reject]
  6. Both graphical and textual changes should be captured by separate brands. The following exceptions are the only cases when a change or variation can and must be ignored:
    • When a brand appears in multiple colors concurrently, or rotates through color schemes too frequently to establish an identity with any one color scheme, changes in the color must be ignored. Example:
      • "Captain America: Patriot" uses the typical red Marvel logo on issue #2, a silver version on issue #1, and a greenish version on issue #3. These are not distinct brands. http://www.comics.org/series/52430/covers/
    • Informational elements that are attached to, adjacent to, or somehow mixed with publisher brand emblems, such as issue numbers, URLs, descriptive elements such as "limited series", "variant edition" or "one shot", must be ignored.
      • If the URL is an integral and consistent part of the brand, it must be included. URLs or ".com" tacked on to existing emblems are not integral parts of the brand. A brand launched from the beginning including a URL within the emblem, or reworked and relaunched to integrate a URL, would have the URL as an integral part of the brand.
  7. Brands that are integrated into series names (DC Special) are still brands.
    • Integrated brands that otherwise appear identical to existing brands should be treated as instances of the existing brand.
    • Integrated brands that appear different beyond their simple attachment to a series name should be treated as separate brands. However, the series name should not become part of the brand, nor should there be a separate brand for each series unless some other element of the brand changes per series. For instance, DC brands that used different background shapes with different series are separate brands, but plain DC letters in a white circle (attached to a series name or not) are all the same brand.
  8. Multiple brands should be separated by semi-colons.
  9. Additional examples sent to the GCD policy list during the discussion leading up to this ballot where the discussion participants agreed on the example usage should be incorporated into this definition. Examples where the participants did not reach an agreement may be included if the existing disagreements are resolved by discussion or vote.

Back to the Formatting Documentation

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