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 <[email protected]>: > 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 > <[email protected]> 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 <[email protected]> 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. >>>> >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> nix-dev mailing list >>> [email protected] >>> http://lists.science.uu.nl/mailman/listinfo/nix-dev >> >> >> >> -- >> Nicolas Pierron >> http://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolasbpierron - http://nbp.name/ >> _______________________________________________ >> nix-dev mailing list >> [email protected] >> http://lists.science.uu.nl/mailman/listinfo/nix-dev > _______________________________________________ > nix-dev mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.science.uu.nl/mailman/listinfo/nix-dev -- NixOS: The Purely Functional Linux Distribution http://nixos.org _______________________________________________ nix-dev mailing list [email protected] http://lists.science.uu.nl/mailman/listinfo/nix-dev
