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Hi all. I have some exciting news to share. A design for the official Apple.se site is in the works!

I need to ask the community what the final text in the header logo should be. Right now it's just "Apple." I feel it's a bit incomplete. Would "Apple Q&A" make more sense?

I'm open for suggestions.

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    I have some suggestion for accepted answer put green apple on it in your design :D
    – Am1rr3zA
    Dec 13, 2010 at 20:00
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    woot! great news!
    – Robert S Ciaccio
    Dec 13, 2010 at 20:51
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    Just curious, how many sites are scheduled to launch before us?
    – Kyle Cronin
    Dec 13, 2010 at 22:34
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    @kyle 1 or 2. However we re-evalute the stats of each Beta site every week, so the launch order is subject to change.
    – Jin
    Dec 13, 2010 at 22:42
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    @Dori, thanks! I have seen the logo thread. I think since Apple dropped the rainbow colors in 1998, it may not reflect of Apple of today. Also for SE site logos, we don't need to make it look like the SE logo. I think the ⌘ symbol may be more fitting. It has an interesting backstory too: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Command_key#The_origin_of_.22.E2.8C.98.22
    – Jin
    Dec 18, 2010 at 6:01
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    @Dori What would be bad about using ⌘? I don't think people are going to refer to it by name, so it shouldn't matter if there are multiple names for it.
    – Kyle Cronin
    Dec 18, 2010 at 7:31
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    @dori but hasn't the rainbow apple icon been obsolete for a solid decade now? Also, we're looking for something people in that community will recognize, like a secret handshake. The words "Stack Overflow", for example, are meaningless to the 99.9% of people who aren't programmers.
    – Jeff Atwood
    Dec 20, 2010 at 9:28
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    @dori: I've stayed out of this debate since my suggestion of ⌘ until now, but the reason why I didn't vote for the rainbow logo is for exactly the first reason that @Jeff states. I love my collection of OS 9 and earlier Macs, but those days are long gone. The reason why I suggested ⌘ is because it has been on every Mac since the first, the Mac is a cornerstone of Apple's product line (we can't develop for the iOS properly without a Mac), and it is still on the keyboard today; ⌘ has outlasted the rainbow-themed logo.
    – Philip Regan
    Dec 20, 2010 at 10:48
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    Oops, it seems I did vote for a rainbow logo, the one currently with four votes. Personally, I'm fine with whatever the community decides here. All of the designs are great so far (Programmers.SE is my current favorite of the sites I visit), so I'm sure whatever is done will look just fine.
    – Philip Regan
    Dec 20, 2010 at 10:53
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    After having thought of this a bit more, I have to say I'm stumped. Not to state the plainly obvious, if we use , we will incur the wrath of Apple's legal eagles. If we use the spectrum, probably not so much, but I don't think it really says "Apple" like it used to; the logo has always been really about the silhouette, I've always thought. Also, I thought one of the requirements was to have something that would work in one color as well, and in that case the spectrum simply won't work.
    – Philip Regan
    Dec 21, 2010 at 0:43
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    @Dori and others, I've enjoyed this debate. I think looking at the site design as a whole package, it needs to emote and reflect the theme of the site. The level of graphical details depends on the site's nature. Gaming has more, and Statistics has less. I try to find that fine balance. I want new users who come to the site to get "this is an Apple" site right away and veteran users enjoy the design as they provide valuable content. The logo is only part of this whole package. We all agree that we can't use , even a variation of it may get us in legal trouble. that's why I think ⌘ is [...]
    – Jin
    Dec 21, 2010 at 4:46
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    [...] the next most recognizable symbol. Speaking of the design, occasionally I ask my respected designer friends to help out. The English site turned out great. For the Apple site, I've asked Mike Rundle of flyosity.com I feel he's more qualified to do the site than I. We talked about the creative direction, we both agreed it needs to reflect the Apple theme clearly, though may not explicitly copy all the Apple design elements. I'm very confident that he'll come up with a great design. I'll post it as soon as I receive it.
    – Jin
    Dec 21, 2010 at 4:50
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    @Kyle I will receive the design after the New Year, aiming to launch the site first week of Jan.
    – Jin
    Dec 27, 2010 at 0:30
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    @Kyle bug me anytime! :) I talked to the designer yesterday. he's fine tuning some last min changes will have the design for me tomorrow. I'll post it as soon as I get it.
    – Jin
    Jan 7, 2011 at 20:02
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    @Jin: I'm not not an admin, but I'm anxious to see the site design. Any word on this?
    – Philip Regan
    Jan 14, 2011 at 14:07

9 Answers 9

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In addition to being too short, just calling our site "Apple" would probably result in some trademark issues. "Apple Q&A" might work, but I have to say that I did like the top domain name suggestion "Ask Different".

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    I like "Ask Different" a lot, maybe have a tagline to go with it "There's an answer for that."
    – Jin
    Dec 13, 2010 at 22:01
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    or title: "Apple Q&A" tagline: "There's an answer for that."
    – Jin
    Dec 13, 2010 at 22:44
  • My suggestion would be to title the site 'Apple Q&A' and the tagline to be 'Ask Different' because I really like that line.
    – Ali
    Jan 3, 2011 at 13:42
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We could make a play on the ubiquitous Help menu...

Apple Help: There's an answer for that.

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AskApple

Much better than the only somewhat related current title. The chiefly title is like the AskUbuntu site being called AskPerfection.

AskApple means the user knows exactly what the site is about straight away. And it fits better with existing stackexchange sites (AskUbuntu) and also stackexchange sites haven't really changed their title when going out of beta. Also the URL of the site matches the title much more than currently. Now it's like if Google changed their name but didn't change any of the domain names.

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Okay, one more idea I just came up with:

Ask Different: Apple Q&A For The Rest Of Us

It uses the favored URL, it uses "Apple" to make it clear the intent for the site in a place that would most likely fall under fair use, and it might look actually good on a t-shirt (but not as a tattoo).

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  • I like this one best :)
    – Robert S Ciaccio
    Dec 21, 2010 at 5:04
  • Ooh. Well "Think Different" was discontinued in 2002, soon 9 years gone. See? We can't win here. Aaigh!
    – Philip Regan
    Dec 21, 2010 at 10:14
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I'm mostly neutral on this topic, but I would like to see the word 'Apple' somewhere in there. There are many forums and websites that in their site headlines use mac, iphone, ipad, apple, etc...

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Or maybe try to find a combination of all of the above.

Title: Apple Q&A

Tagline: ask different, there’s an answer for that.

or if we switch…

Title: Ask Different

Tag: There’s an answer for that Apple

something like that to satisfy both Apple wanters and tagliners only :)

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    Could work, but it seems like a mouthful
    – Kyle Cronin
    Dec 17, 2010 at 17:08
  • +1 for the first Title and Tag
    – Greg
    Dec 18, 2010 at 6:59
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Cider Press: Bringing answers to your Apple hardware and software questions. No pulp added.

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I think just use Apple better for your design but you are right maybe it's not complete

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how about something like "The Apple Core"?

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