[Nix-dev] Logo improvement ideas

Tue Aug 25 19:11:13 CEST 2015

Perhaps we should also have separate (but related) logos for each of
the NixOS projects: Nix, NixOS, NixOps, etc. to help people understand
how they fit together.

2015-08-25 18:16 GMT+02:00 Cillian de Róiste <cillian.deroiste at gmail.com>:
> Hi Tim,
>
> Very interesting designs! There was some talk at FOSDEM this year
> about brushing up the design/branding in general. I was really hoping
> we could get a designer on board to help with that although it fell
> through (but maybe you are a designer?). Before updating the logo, I
> wonder if we should step back a bit and think about what the logo
> should communicate. I added a stub of a page to the wiki to develop a
> style guide, but I haven't done much with it since:
> https://nixos.org/wiki/Style_Guide . Would something like that be a
> good place to start?
>
> BTW, The issues with the overlapping lambdas in the current logo
> should be solved in this version:
> https://github.com/NixOS/nixos-artwork/blob/master/logo/nix-snowflake.svg
>
> I'm pretty sure we can get help with the colors from
> http://opensourcedesign.net (I've asked them about it before, but
> figured we should work on the style guide first).
>
> Personally, I'm really fond of the current logo, although I would
> really like if we decided on a standard font (I'm a fan of Varela
> Round, to go with the current logo). Most of all I'd love if we could
> have a style guide, and have templates everyone could use for flyers,
> posters, t-shirts etc. I'd really love if NixOS could be themeable
> from configuration.nix too, but that's another story :D
>
> What do you think? Perhaps we could have some kind of a video
> conferencing session with anyone who's interested to get the ball
> rolling?
>
> Cheers,
> Cillian
>
>
> 2015-08-25 7:25 GMT+02:00 Tim Cuthbertson <tim at gfxmonk.net>:
>> Nicolas,
>>
>> You raise a very good point about the print-appropriate colours. On
>> reflection, I think the blues I've chosen are possibly among the worst
>> for print reproduction ;)
>>
>> Regarding the gradient, I think it's common enough to have a
>> full-color digital logo (including gradients / shading), with a flat
>> colour version for print.
>>
>> So I've added a "print options" file, with what I think are more
>> print-appropriate colours. TBH I don't have much experience here - I
>> used CMYK colour selector, but outside that I'm not quite sure how to
>> make sure a colour is good for printers - should I be looking at
>> pantone colours or something?
>>
>> It's also testing against different backgrounds, and in different
>> shapes (i.e circular sticker, popular for laptops). I'm not sure if
>> it's bad form to put your wordmark inside your logo, but it's
>> otherwise quite awkward to put a big circular thing _and_ some
>> additional text into an outer circle.
>>
>> https://github.com/gfxmonk/nixos-logo-ideas/blob/master/exports/logo-print-options.png
>>
>> To be honest, the print works well enough we could drop the gradient
>> version if we want to keep it simple. But I do still prefer it myself.
>>
>> Cheers,
>>  - Tim.
>>
>> On Tue, Aug 25, 2015 at 5:36 AM, Nicolas Pierron
>> <nicolas.b.pierron at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Thanks Tim,
>>>
>>> I think we definitely need a new logo, for at least 2 reasons:
>>>  - The overlap of the lambda does not render correctly in all software.
>>>  - The colors are not industrial printers friendly.
>>>
>>> All your proposal are well addressing the first issue, by removing the
>>> overlap and adding extra transparency between the lambdas.
>>>
>>> On the other hand, the gradient might be worse than the current status
>>> about making the image easy to print (CYMK).  I think we would be
>>> printing more and more t-shirts / goodies in the future, and this is a
>>> critical issue that we have to solve with the current logo.
>>>
>>> Also, a-part from the shape of the logo, I think it would be
>>> interesting to see how well the colors of the lambda might render with
>>> various background colors.  The goal is not to choose a different
>>> background color, but to make sure that the lambda's color are still
>>> good, even if printed on black t-shirts.
>>>
>>> Personal opinion:
>>> shape:
>>>  - "slant" does not feels good and straight, as I would expect from our image.
>>>  - "hex", "circle", "straight" are fine.
>>>  - "straight" lambdas' left arm seems to be too-long.
>>>
>>> color:
>>>  - "none" removes the charm, of having something a bit different.
>>>  - "half" and "feature" sound both good.
>>>  - "feature" sounds interesting, and makes the lambda too obvious, but
>>> "half" sounds warmer/more solid than "feature".
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, Aug 24, 2015 at 7:58 PM, Joachim Schiele <js at lastlog.de> wrote:
>>>> looks great!
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 24.08.2015 05:14, Tim Cuthbertson wrote:
>>>>> 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.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
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>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Nicolas Pierron
>>> http://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolasbpierron - http://nbp.name/
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>>> nix-dev at lists.science.uu.nl
>>> http://lists.science.uu.nl/mailman/listinfo/nix-dev
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>
>
>
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> NixOS: The Purely Functional Linux Distribution
> http://nixos.org

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NixOS: The Purely Functional Linux Distribution
http://nixos.org