Re: Our official home page and logo for the Git project

[Jeff King <peff@peff.net>]

On Fri, Apr 11, 2014 at 08:24:48AM -0500, Felipe Contreras wrote:

> I would actually like you (everyone) to be honest and answer this
> question;
> 
> Have you actually analized the logo? Or are you just arguing against
> change, because the logo is already used by git-scm.com, and related
> stuff?

Is this rhetorical? If not...

Yes, I really thought about the logo and like it.

Many of your complaints are about how git concepts map onto the logo
(for instance, the direction of the graph nodes).  That is _one_ way of
evaluating the logo.

But there are other criteria, as well. For example, is the logo pleasing
to the eye? Is it memorable and recognizable? Things like "pleasing" are
subjective, but there are patterns across humanity. Graphic artists have
studied this for some time and have guidelines for layouts, contrast,
balance, proportionality, etc.

For example, in the git-fc logo you mentioned, you rotated the logo from
git-scm.com. I find it less visually pleasing than the original. It
seems somehow more "wobbly" to me with the two branches sticking up.
Now, that is my completely subjective opinion. I do not know very much
about graphic design, and whether guidelines could help there, nor did I
conduct any empirical research. So maybe it is just me, or maybe one
design is universally more pleasing than the other.

But I think that visual art considerations should be at least as
important in a logo as whether the logo pedantically matches the tool's
output.

-Peff