> On Oct 21, 2025, at 11:51 AM, Lola Odelola <lolaodelola@gmail.com> wrote: > > > I'm indifferent to the new logo but I'm curious, does the community feel like the new logo and branding prevents the W3C from accomplishing our strategic goals <https://www.w3.org/mission/#strategy>? I wrote to the AC in March https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/w3c-ac-forum/2025JanMar/0040.html that I was concerned that the Team’s rebranding campaign would distract from the internal strategy and process work needed to restore W3C’s brand image. (To his credit, Seth seems to have quickly identified as a serious issue). Seth replied https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/w3c-ac-forum/2025JanMar/0041.html that the rebranding effort would empower he strategy work, and that the Team had plenty of resources to do both the branding and strategy work. "Starting this effort by using this rebrand to reaffirm our commitment to our values, particularly in these challenging times, should help instill hope and bring positive momentum to the work ahead. " It’s up to the Board to hold the CEO accountable for the success or failure of that approach, and obviously this is an increasingly sensitive topic that even I can’t complain about the Board being insufficiently transparent as they do their assessment. But from what I can see, the rebranding campaign and radical logo redesign has been a significant distraction for the team, and the there has been little AC-visible progress on the strategy work since the Spring AC meeting. (Task forces have been formed to study the priority areas….) The Team didn’t share their “impact framework” for the effect they anticipated the rebranding effort would have, nor any data on responses from the target audience. As far as I can see from web searches and the social media I follow, the overall impact has been “meh” at best (although design aficionados like the “polysemic” logo design), lots of anonymous snarking, but generally just silence. Whether the silence is “assent” or “I’m not gonna even talk about what I see in that image”, I have no idea. But the AC Forum discussions do not "instill hope and bring positive momentum to the work ahead”.
Received on Wednesday, 22 October 2025 16:23:48 UTC