Pidgin mascot

[Ethan Blanton]

Tres Finocchiaro spake unto us the following wisdom:
> When the Pidgin project was ready to change names, how did it pick
> "Pidgin"?  Was it something on IRC that caught a developers eye, or
> was Denis responsible for this creative name as well?

The developers had a very long discussion about this, and decided it
among ourselves.  The Pidgin suggestion came from (I believe) Sean
Egan, who was lead developer at the time.

> I was and stull am very fond of the [Pidgin] rebranding and
> would like some help and ideas on a very similar rebranding approach.
> 
> I also noticed when the new branding occured, the new domain name and
> site theme were carefully orchestrated at the same time.  Was the site
> work community driven?  Was the rest of the tango art simply pulled
> from other resources? We would like a very basic and tasteful facelift
> as well and we could use some experienced advice.

There were extenuating circumstances in our case, as our name change
was driven by threat of legal action.  We did carefully orchestrate
many things at that time, but unfortunately most of it was not
"community" driven.  We were advised (by our lawyers) to keep
everything quiet until an agreement was reached.  We devised the name
ourselves, then hired 38one to do the logo and Hylke Bons to draw the
initial set of Pidgin icons.  (Hylke has also continued to contribute
new icons and update the existing icons since.)  I believe Blend
Interactive did our web site pro bono, but I am not sure about that at
this point.  (Someone else may know the details.)  We chose the domain
pidgin.im, but it was purchased by an anonymous donor for our use (.im
domains are not cheap!).  Coordinating it all, and releasing it more
or less simultaneously, was a lot of work.  A community-driven effort
would be easier.  :-) That said on the organization side, we (or at
least I) feel that the artwork purchases and professional design
assistance were valuable and would do it again.

I know that's probably not what you expected (or wanted?) to hear, but
I hope it's helpful.  :-)

Ethan
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