Looking for a designer to build a brand for Content Labels (POWDER)

We’re looking for an enthusiastic Web designer to build a brand identity with associated iconography for Content Labels. This is a great opportunity for the successful artist to contribute to the world of open standards.

About Content Labels

When browsing the Web, wouldn’t it be nice to get more information about Web sites before having to visit each one? Wouldn’t it be nice if Google provided more that just the title and description of each Web page from the search results.

For example, wouldn’t it be nice to know which sites comply with accessibility standards, or which sites are appropriate for children or mobile phone browsing? You might want to know which sites have been independently verified by a medical authority when searching for advice on something which may influence your decision to buy medication online. Well, until Content Labels came along, none of this has been possible.

In summary, a Content Label is a file that contains Metadata. To help enable more trust on the Web, organisations use a Content Label alongside Trustmarks to demonstrate that their Web site complies with specific Web standards and best practices.

In concept, Content Labels act in a similar fashion to SSL Certificates. SSL Certificates are used so browsers can tell if a site is secure for credit card transactions. However, Content Labels are much more flexible. They can be used to make claims about a specific section of a Web site without the restriction of having to make a claim about an entire domain. They can also be used to make claims about any type of standard, best practice or code of conduct.

As you can see from the screen shot of our Firefox extension above, browsers that read Content Labels provide more information about Web sites by placing a small icon next to each search result. When a user clicks on the icon, more information about the appropriateness of the Web site is presented in a certificate.

Some people jump to the conclusion that we’re trying to ‘police the Internet’. We’re not. Web site owners don’t have to use Content Labels to make assertions about anything. Furthermore, it’s possible to label your own Web site without having to use a trusted third-party such as Segala to verify your claims. For example, Creative Commons is free, so you won’t have to pay for a Content Label for that type of badge when we’ve created one.

Content Labels, now known as POWDER in the W3C, will replace an old W3C standard called PICS; the system currently used by Internet Explorer for filtering content. POWDER (Content Labels) is not owned or patented by Segala. It’s soon to be a ratified standard.

Read one of my previous blog posts for an in-depth explanation to help you gain a better understanding.

What’s needed

We need a brand identity that represents terms such as Trust, Relevant and Reliable. Iconography would include an icon in the browser status bar. The icon would light up when a user visits a Web page which contains a label. We also need iconography for the Web site.

Take a look at Microformats.org for an insight to what’s needed for ContentLabel.org - it’s pretty much the same. Contentlabel.org is intended to help industry create new best practices to help improve trust on the Web.

Getting paid

This is an open standards project so we’ll ensure your work is widely recognized. We’ll also buy you a beer or two, or three
If you’re interested, please provide us with a few examples of your work. We’ll publish the short list and get the public to decide on the most appropriate designer. This project is open to agencies, freelancers and students.