[Nix-dev] Logo improvement ideas

[Tim Cuthbertson]

Hello all,

I'm a big fan of Nix / NixOS, but I've long felt that the logo could
do with a bit of work. So I toyed about a bit with inkscape, and came
up with a few ideas:

https://github.com/gfxmonk/nixos-logo-ideas/tree/master/exports

They mostly keep to the existing logo structure, but with some changes:

 - Make the lines wider, and remove the rounded caps. The existing
logo feels too thin, as if it's made of lines rather than shapes. This
feels fragile, particularly when scaled down.

 - Made the lambda structure more obvious. To be honest, it wasn't
until fairly recently that I noticed that the logo was made of
lambdas. I've added gaps between each one so they don't run into a
single shape as much. I've also added some subtle gradients at the top
of each, to turn it into more of a woven structure, rather than a
snowflake.

 - Rotated the shape so that there's an upright lambda, and the shape
fits better into a restricted-height context (e.g a header bar).

# Shape variants:

"straight": More or less equivalent to the current logo, but with
straight (not rounded) edges

"hex": Blockier in general, and gives the short foot of the lambda a
triangular edge. This aligns all outer points to a hexagon shape,
mirroring the inner hexagon.

"slant": The lambdas in this one have a fatter head and thinner feet.
This makes the overall structure look more dynamic and organic, but
de-emphasizes the clean lambda shape somewhat. The shapes on this one
may need some tweaking, as the outer shape (made by the feet) still
seems a little disorganized still.

# Highlight variants:

"none": every lambda has the same shading

"half": every second shape is darker (as in the current logo)

"feature": the right-way-up lambda is the only darker shape. This
makes the repeating lambda structure more obvious, but obviously
affects symmetry.

I haven't done too much experimentation with the colours, but feel
free to crack open the svgs (in the parent directory) and try whatever
you like.

Let me know what you think!

Cheers,
 - Tim.