@subsection Goals

This section descirbes the implementation of @emph{The CentOS Project
Corporate Identity}.

@subsection Description

The CentOS Project Corporate Identity is the ``persona'' of the
organization known as The CentOS Project.  The CentOS Project
Corporate Identity plays a significant role in the way the CentOS
Project, as organization, presents itself to both internal and
external stakeholders. In general terms, the CentOS Project Corporate
Identity expresses the values and ambitions of the CentOS Project
organization, its business, and its characteristics.  

The CentOS Project Corporate Identity provides visibility,
recognizability, reputation, structure and identification to The
CentOS Project organization by means of @emph{Corporate Design},
@emph{Corporate Communication}, and @emph{Corporate Behaviour}.

@subsubsection Corporate Design

The CentOS Project Corporate Design is applied to every single visual
manifestations The CentOS Project as organization wants to express its
existence. Examples of the most relevant visual manifestations inside
The CentOS Project are @emph{The CentOS Distribution}, @emph{The
CentOS Web} and @emph{The CentOS Stationery}.

The CentOS Project Corporate Design is organized in the following
work-lines:

@table @strong

@item Brushes
@xref{Directories trunk Identity Brushes}, for more information.

@item Fonts

The CentOS Fonts provide the @emph{Corporate Typography} information
used along The CentOS Project visual manifestations.

@xref{Directories trunk Identity Fonts}, for more information.

@item Images
@xref{Directories trunk Identity Images}, for more information.
@item Models
@xref{Directories trunk Identity Models}, for more information.
@item Palettes 

The CentOS Palettes provide the @emph{Corporate Color} information
used along The CentOS Project visual manifestations.

@xref{Directories trunk Identity Palettes}, for more information.

@item Patterns
@xref{Directories trunk Identity Patterns}, for more information.
@item Themes

The CentOS Themes provide the @emph{Corporate Structure} and the
@emph{Corporate Visual Style} used along The CentOS Project visual
manifestations.

@xref{Directories trunk Identity Themes}, for more information.

@item Webenv
@xref{Directories trunk Identity Webenv}, for more information.
@end table

@subsubsection Corporate Communication

The CentOS Project Corporate Communication is based on @emph{Community
Communication}.  In that sake, the following media are available:

@itemize
@item The CentOS Chat (@code{#centos}, @code{#centos-social},
@code{#centos-devel} on irc.freenode.net)
@item The CentOS Mailing Lists (@url{http://lists.centos.org/}).
@item The CentOS Forums (@url{http://forums.centos.org/}).
@end itemize

@subsubsection Corporate Behaviour

The CentOS Project Corporate Behaviour is based on @emph{Community
Behaviour}.

@subsubsection Corporate Structure

The CentOS Project Corporate Structure is based on a @emph{Monolithic
Corporate Visual Identity Structure}. In this structure, one unique
name and one unique visual style is used in all visual manifestation
of The CentOS Project.

In a monolithic corporate visual identity structure, internal and
external stakeholders use to feel a strong sensation of uniformity,
orientation, and identification with the organization. No matter if
you are visiting web sites, using the distribution, or acting on
social events, the one unique name and one unique visual style
connects them all to say: @emph{Hey! we are all part of The CentOS
Project}.

Other corporate structures for The CentOS Project have been considered
as well. Such is the case of producing one different visual style for
each major releasae of CentOS Distribution. This structure isn't
inconvenient at all, but some visual contradictions could be
introduced if it isn't applied correctly and we need to be aware of
it. To apply it correctly, we need to know what The CentOS Project and
which are the visual manifestations it is made of.

The CentOS Project, as organization, is mainly made of (but not
limited to) three visual manifestions: Distribution, Web and
Stationery. Inside the Distribution visual manifestations, The CentOS
Project maintains near to four different major releases of CentOS
Distribution, parallely in time.  Inside Web and Stationery visual
manifestations content is visually produced to fit non-release-specifc
content but treat it as a visual manifestation properly. For example,
consider that there is no a complete web site for each major release
of CentOS distribution, but one web site to cover the information
related to all release-specific visual manifestations like CentOS
distribution.

In order to produce the correct corporate structure for The CentOS
Project we need to concider all the visual manifestations The CentOS
Project is made of, not just one of them.  If one different visual
style is used for each major release of The CentOS Distribution, which
one of those different visual styles would be used to cover the
remaining visual manifestations The CentOS Project is made of (e.g.,
web sites and stationery)? 

Probably you are thinking, that's right, but The CentOS Brand connects
them all already, why would we need to join them up into the same
visual style too, isn't it more work to do, and harder to maintain?

Harder to maintain, more work to do, probably. Specially when you
consider that The CentOS Project has proven stability and consistency
through time and that, certainly, didn't come through swinging magical
wangs or something but hardly working out to automate tasks and
providing maintainance through time. Said that, we consider that The
CentOS Project Visual Structure should be consequent with such
stability and consistency tradition. It is true that The CentOS Brand
does connect all the visual manifestations it is present on, but that
connection would be stronger if one unique visual style backups it.
In fact, whatever thing you do to strength the visual connection among
The CentOS Project visual manifestations would be very good in favor
of The CentOS Project recognition.

Obviously, having just one visual style in all visual manifestations
for eternity would be a very boring thing and would give the idea of a
visually dead project. So, there is no problem on creating a brand new
visual style for each new major release of The CentOS Distribution, in
order to refresh The CentOS Distribution visual style; the problem is
in not propagating the brand new visual style created for the new
release of CentOS Distribution to all other visual manifestations The
CentOS Project is made of, in a way The CentOS Project could be
recognized no matter what visual manifestation be in front of us. Such
lack of uniformity is what introduces the visual contradition we are
precisely trying to solve by mean of themes production in the CentOS
Artwork Repository.

@subsection Usage

The @file{trunk/Identity/} directory structure is organized in
@emph{renderable} and @emph{non-renderable} directories. Generally,
renderable directories are stored under @file{trunk/Identity/Images}
and @file{trunk/Identity/Themes/Motifs} directories. These directories
contain the image files used to implemente The CentOS Project
Corporate Identity.

@subsubsection Rendition

In order to produce content inside rendereble directories, you can use
the following command:

@verbatim 
centos-art render trunk/Identity/Path/To/Dir
@end verbatim

@quotation 
@strong{Warning} If the @command{centos-art} command-line
is not found in your workstation, it is probably because you haven't
prepared your workstation for using The CentOS Artwork Repository yet.
@xref{Directories trunk Scripts Functions Prepare}, for more
information.  
@end quotation

This command takes one design template (a.k.a., design model) from the
template directory and creates an instance of it in order to apply
translation messages, if any. Later, using the translated design
template instance, the command renders the final content based on
whether the design template instance is a SVG file or XHTML.  If the
design template instace is a SVG file, the final content produced is a
PNG image. On the other hand, if the design template instance is a
XHTML file, the final content produced is a XHTML file. The rendition
flow described so far is known as the @command{centos-art.sh} script
@emph{base-rendition} flow.

Besides the base-rendition flow, the @command{centos-art} provides
@emph{post-rendition} and @emph{last-rendition} flows.  The
post-rendition flow is applied to files produced as result of
base-rendition flow under the same directory structure. For example,
you can use post-rendition action to convert the PNG base output into
different outputs formats (e.g., JPG, PDF, etc.) before passing to
process the next file in the same directory structure.  The
last-rendition flow, on the other hand, is applied to all files
produced as result of both base-rendition and post-rendition flows in
the same directory structure, just before passing to process a
different directory structure.  For example, the @file{Preview.png}
image from Ksplash component is made of three images. In order to
build the @file{Preview.png} image through @command{centos-art.sh} we
need to wait for all the three images the @file{Preview.png} image is
made of to be rendered in order to combine them all together into just
one image (i.e., the @file{Preview.png} image).  This is something we
can't do using post-rendition flow.

Inside @file{trunk/Identity} directory structure, you can find that
base-rendition, post-rendition and last-rendition flows can be
combined to build @emph{directory-specific} rendition.  The
directory-specific rendition exists to automatically process specific
renderable directories in very specific ways. Using directory-specific
rendition speeds up production of different components like Syslinux,
Grub, Gdm, Kdm and Ksplash that require intermediate formats or even
several independent files, in order to reach the final content
construction.  Directory-specific rendition is a way to
programmatically describe how specific art works are built in and
organized inside The CentOS Artwork Repository.  Such descriptions
have been added to @command{centos-art.sh} command-line to let you
produce them all with just one single command, as fast as your machine
can be able to handle it. 

@xref{Directories trunk Scripts Functions Render}, for more
information about the @command{render} functionality of
@command{centos-art.sh} script.

@subsubsection Documentation

@subsubsection Localization


@subsection See also

See @url{http://en.wikipedia.org/Corporate_identity} (and related
links), for general information on Corporate Identity. 

Specially useful has been, and still is, the book @emph{Corporate
Identity} by Wally Olins (1989). This book provides many conceptual
ideas we've used as base to build The CentOS Artwork Repository.