A few years ago I was looking at some ebook book covers, and a handful stood out as exceptional. “Who did these?” I wondered. … It was Steve Jordan. He is immensely talented.

I would like to see the letters EPUB somehow integrated into the design. One day, EPUB may become famous enough, like Paris Hilton and PDF, so that the name will not be necessary.

Second, if there is a new version of ePub then I hope it will be backwards compatible with previous version(s). But I would argue that a version number should still be depicted in the logo in either numeric or symbolic form.

Suppose a consumer has an ebook reader that can read ePub ver 1.0, and he or she visits an ebook store and selects an ebook formatted in ePub ver 2.0. Suppose further that the ebook reader cannot handle ebooks formatted in version 2.0. The consumer would probably be very aggravated if the only guide during purchase was a misleading ePub logo that did not discriminate between versions.

I agree that version numbers can be confusing. Also, they can be ugly when slapped on to an elegant logo design. Yet, the omission of version numbers can lead to even greater confusions. It might be possible to construct a logo that gracefully allows for variations reflecting version numbers.

I’d hope that including version numbers wouldn’t be an issue here, not to mention the fact that they can be confusing. With any luck, most OEB-reading hardware would be backwards-compatible with earlier but compliant OEB versions… IOW, any future tweaks should hopefully be additive, and not making any fundamental changes to the underlying format. (Otherwise, you have a new format, don’t you?)

There is a precedent for letters and words appearing in successful technological logos, e.g., the DVD logo has the letters DVD and the Blu-Ray logo says Blu-Ray Disc. The USB logo has the letters USB and the word “CERTIFIED”. The words “HI-SPEED” and “On-The-Go” are incorporated in the USB logo to designate variant versions of the base standard.

More controversially perhaps I think that a version number should be included in the ePub logo, because I do not think that the current standard is the final one. The ePub standard will evolve and the logo should also allow for a natural pathway of change. If the same logo is used for multiple versions of a standard then it can cause confusion.

@David: There’s no reason why the word “ePub” couldn’t be added to the logo, most likely outside the logo itself… but like other logos (Adobe reader, Mobipocket, eReader, MS Reader), I believe it is unnecessary, and after a time, the text could be removed.

Personally, I am trying to get into the habit of referring to the format as Open E-Book, or OEB… that, not ePub, is the actual name. After all, nobody refers to PRC files… they say Mobipocket. That is also why I wouldn’t want to attach “ePub” to the logo, as that is not its name. But that’s just me, and if no one else can wrap their heads around that, that’s fine.

As for the trademark angle, I fervently want the IDPF to retain control and enforce the standards. Martin, Ted and Paul are right on the “mark.”

Thanks,
David

Good point. Truth spoken like a experienced veteran technologist. That is the same issue that has bothered me about the growing ebook industry where 800 lb gorillas like to improve on industry standards with their flavor of proprietary tweaks, resulting in reduced customer usability. As an industry, we need to grow up and adopt lessons learned and best practices that are proven from other industries.

I am all for the IDPF initiating an open contest to select an ePub logo that will further establish ePub as THE industry standard that readers can make buy decisions with confidence and comfort.

Thanks!

Don’t: that would make it useless.

Note that an important reason why CDs worked as a music carrier was that Philips owned the trademark, made it valuable, and restricted its use only to discs and players that conformed to the standards that they had laid down. Thus the consumer knew that any disc with the Compact Disc Digital Audio logo would play on any device with the Compact Disc Digital Audio logo, and that (for example) any copy-protection that made CDs unplayable on some machines meant that those discs could not carry the logo.

If this symbol becomes valuable, it should similarly guarantee that any symbol-marked file should be playable on any symbol-marked player. This will prevent anyone from attempting an “embrace and extend” strategy to make the format proprietary, and it will prevent the growth of dialects of ePub that would fragment the market.

For example, imagine that Amazon decide to bundle an automated ePub-to-Mobipocket converter with the Kindle, but do not upgrade the capabilities of the Mobipocket display engine. This means (as is well documented) that only some ePub files will display correctly on the Kindle. If you place no restrictions on your trademark’s use, Amazon will be able to use it on their devices, and their market clout may mean that ePub no longer means what the IDPF defined it to mean but what one large corporation has decided it shall mean.

Or suppose that Adobe add a facility to their reader that everyone has been asking for (footnotes, perhaps?) and some publishers start creating ePub files with that facility, which cannot be read on devices that simply conform to the ePub standard. In that case, if you do not control the use of your symbol, standards-conforming readers will be squeezed out of the market because they cannot read all trademarked files; and incidentally the trademark will become worthless because it will no longer be a guarantee of interoperability.