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Roedy Green - 30 Jan 2006 08:06 GMT

We have a symbol in our culture to indicate requires payment, the $,
but I can't think of one that would be easily recognised as a "free"
icon.

I thought perhaps of a open hand, or a blue bird, but that is not very
obvious.

Any ideas?

What colour do you associate with "Free"?

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Canadian Mind Products, Roedy Green.
http://mindprod.com Java custom programming, consulting and coaching.

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Arnaud B. - 30 Jan 2006 08:59 GMT

What about a light blue S with a horizontal bar ?

> We have a symbol in our culture to indicate requires payment, the $,
> but I can't think of one that would be easily recognised as a "free"
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
>
> What colour do you associate with "Free"?

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Timbo - 30 Jan 2006 10:11 GMT

> We have a symbol in our culture to indicate requires payment, the $,
> but I can't think of one that would be easily recognised as a "free"
> icon.

Hmmm... this is a very interesting point.

> I thought perhaps of a open hand, or a blue bird, but that is not very
> obvious.

An open hand is not the way to go. That can be interpreted as
exactly the opposite; i.e. holding your hand out to receive payment.

> Any ideas?

How about just $0 or $0.00? I know they use numbers, but the
message is clear

There are languages designed (one I can think of is called the
Icon Language) for communicating with images etc, so maybe they
have already answered this??

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impaler - 30 Jan 2006 10:16 GMT

I associate green with Go, Ok, Free
Yellow has something that says it is ok BUT...
Blue is like yellow, weiling something.
A green leaf in my opinion would do it, just an idea

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Roedy Green - 30 Jan 2006 12:45 GMT

>I associate green with Go, Ok, Free

Americans also associate green with money.

the advantage of icons are compactness. I don't need a wide column to
display it. Further people can rapidly pick out the anomalies by eye.

One complaint I get about my website is that tables are too wide. I
was horrified to discover how idiotically IE renders them. It has
absolutely no common sense on how to choose column widths.

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Canadian Mind Products, Roedy Green.
http://mindprod.com Java custom programming, consulting and coaching.

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Roedy Green - 30 Jan 2006 14:42 GMT

On Mon, 30 Jan 2006 12:45:19 GMT, Roedy Green
<my_email_is_posted_on_my_website@munged.invalid> wrote, quoted or
indirectly quoted someone who said :

>Americans also associate green with money.
>
>the advantage of icons are compactness. I don't need a wide column to
>display it. Further people can rapidly pick out the anomalies by eye.

at least for now I decided to go with a green dollar sign for
paid/money and a blue dolphin for free.

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Canadian Mind Products, Roedy Green.
http://mindprod.com Java custom programming, consulting and coaching.

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Luc The Perverse - 30 Jan 2006 19:58 GMT

> On Mon, 30 Jan 2006 12:45:19 GMT, Roedy Green
> <my_email_is_posted_on_my_website@munged.invalid> wrote, quoted or
[quoted text clipped - 7 lines]
> at least for now I decided to go with a green dollar sign for
> paid/money and a blue dolphin for free.

You could use the red communist symbol

--
LTP

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opalpa@gmail.com opalinski from opalpaweb - 30 Jan 2006 13:49 GMT

ideas:

. white dove (wrong kind of free)
. a red circle with a diagnol red line, like a road sign, with $ behind
. $0
. "FREE!"
. "Free"

Opalinski
opalpa@gmail.com
http://www.geocities.com/opalpaweb/

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Jeffrey Schwab - 30 Jan 2006 13:58 GMT

> We have a symbol in our culture to indicate requires payment, the $,
> but I can't think of one that would be easily recognised as a "free"
> icon.
>
> I thought perhaps of a open hand, or a blue bird, but that is not very
> obvious.

They remind me of beggars and old Disney films, but maybe you could
establish a new symbol. Especially if the icon linked to an explanatory
page.

> Any ideas?

How about a $ in a circle with a diagonal line through it?

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Chris Uppal - 30 Jan 2006 14:47 GMT

> > We have a symbol in our culture to indicate requires payment, the $,
> > but I can't think of one that would be easily recognised as a "free"
> > icon.
> [...]
> How about a $ in a circle with a diagonal line through it?

+1

(Green dollar sign, red overlay)

-- chris

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Thomas Hawtin - 30 Jan 2006 16:59 GMT

>> How about a $ in a circle with a diagonal line through it?
>
> +1
>
> (Green dollar sign, red overlay)

Green and red? Euw, angry fruit salad icons.

Perhaps the dollar sign should replaced with an international pin
cushion (only kidding).

Tom Hawtin

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Unemployed English Java programmer
http://jroller.com/page/tackline/

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David Segall - 30 Jan 2006 14:04 GMT

>We have a symbol in our culture to indicate requires payment, the $,
>but I can't think of one that would be easily recognised as a "free"
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
>
>Any ideas?

I think it _should_ be a Gnu <http://www.gnu.org/>. The Free Software
Foundation deserves the recognition and you can start (continue?) the
trend. However, if you are talking about software that is free but not
open source, I guess a Gnu might be considered misleading.

>What colour do you associate with "Free"?

The Open Source Initiative <http://www.opensource.org/> goes for green
but they seem very picky about their logo. I guess they can't stop you
using the colour.

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Joe Attardi - 30 Jan 2006 19:44 GMT

> I think it _should_ be a Gnu <http://www.gnu.org/>. The Free Software
> Foundation deserves the recognition and you can start (continue?) the
> trend.

There are two problems with using the Gnu:

(1) The FSF stresses repeatedly that when they say "free", they mean
free as in freedom, not free as in price. So using their symbol to
represent something that is free of charge may be a bit misleading.

(2) Roedy is looking for something that would be easily recognizable as
"free". We shouldn't assume that all his site visitors are familiar
with the Free Software Foundation; neither should we assume that those
who are familiar with the FSF know that they are represented by a Gnu.

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Joe Attardi [jattardi@gmail.com]

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