Logo

[oojacoboo]

Be kinda nice to have a logo for Perpl. Here are the ones that were generated previously.

Any other ideas/thoughts? Maybe we could choose a few and have a vote/poll?

[mringler]

Yes, good that you bring it up! I have this one on my desktop for month now:

I like how it uses simple, semi-translucent shapes and layers them to get the letters. This gives a clever, playful, approachable feel, while at the same time, the resulting font is very clean and even a bit elegant (I once read an article about luxury brands switching to sans-serif all-caps fonts, maybe that's why I'm thinking that). Particularly in those colors, there is a touch of 70s minimalism, but I don't think that's a bad thing, Propel comes from a different era after all. It's probably also the colors that make me think of wool detergent, but that's another positive association if nothing else: soft, warm, safe, careful, cozy, clean, with a nice smell.
Having saved the file to desktop, I have seen that logo frequently over month, and I have yet to grow tired of it. I guess I have my favorite.

But which one do you like? There are other very good ones in the collection. For example, these four I also like:

First one I find cool because it reminds me of a record label, second one reminds me of the design in Blade Runner, third one is close to the Propel origin, last one feels very 90s DIY and reads "Porpl", which I find funny (probably not a real contender).

Love to hear your thoughts and see your favorites! Let's settle on a logo!

[oojacoboo]

I dig that one you have on your desktop. It's nice, and I like the color scheme - fitting.

[mringler]

Played around with the documentation style, some examples with logo:

[kasparsatke]

Looks very interesting! Although I fear that the tartan/plaid style font is a bit over the top as it is not so much readable. Maybe such a strong font could be weakened a bit to make it more readable. What I have thought about already a week ago is taking a font and morph it into another and taking the intermediate. A short web search says it’s possible with FontForge yet I have not tried yet.

[oojacoboo]

I agree with @kasparsatke I think the overall design needs to prioritize readability and going with something clean. Personally, I also prefer white backgrounds and not dark themes for docs/webpages.

[mringler]

Are you talking about the same thing? In a logo, I favor looks over readability, as it is only eye-candy. It will not be used in text.
Readability of the docs page is another important matter, the images show dark mode. With light mode, I ended up with something like this:

I've started a discussion about document page style at perplorm/perplorm.github.io#4, maybe we should discuss it there?

[kasparsatke]

As mentioned in perplorm/perplorm.github.io#4 (comment) I would like to split up the logo question a bit and emphasize the icon part of the logo over the font face part of the logo. Saying this, I would be happy if you guys would also have icon suggestions.

[mringler]

The app now generates the logo with reduced kerning:

I like this better, too, but haven't come around to change the colors, which I don't like as much in the newer version.

[kasparsatke]

You say "the app". So assume it is not a font file you have somewhere handy? Don't know, do you mean the web generator Jacob retrieved his suggestions from? Or asked in a different way - could you get the font file so we could directly manipulate it?

[mringler]

Yes, that's from the web generator. It's SVG.
But what would you want to manipulate in a font file? All the letters are there.

[kasparsatke]

Exactly. The letters. I would manipulate the letters. 😀
Or, to be precise, the actual glyphs.
But I have just checked out the svg you uploaded. The "letters" is just svg paths, no embedded font. Would be nice to have an actual .ttf or .otf file.

[kasparsatke]

Bttw - in a real font file you can also provide kerning pairs with kerning rules for different font sizes and widths. Which would be helpful for this font it seems.

[mringler]

So, it has been two weeks, seems like we have a single contender. I wouldn't mind to see some more, but for now, I suggest we move ahead with this one, see how it goes?

First step would be to add it to the docs, but as discussed in perplorm/perplorm.github.io#4, I think this only makes sense with an update of the current style.

Last weekend, I set up a local copy of the docs and started to work on them (removed old blog posts, separated source files from config and output, added docker-compose file for local Jekyll server, added/rewrote the "contribute" pages, added a header to warn people of the state of the docs and ask them to help out, updated the layout).
This is how they look at the moment with the logo:

I'll start making PRs soon, but before settling on the layout, I'd like to know how everyone would want the docs to look, maybe even write the styles together? Is this something you would be interested in, @kasparsatke, @oojacoboo , @murraycollingwood? And if so, how would we do it?

[kasparsatke]

So, it has been two weeks, seems like we have a single contender.

Sorry to say it, but that is not 100% true.

Moritz, there have been different comments about the logo (font) about who likes what but also about one painpoint that is readability.

[murraycollingwood]

I have zero design skills so I will leave this to the rest of you. Two comments: 1. I think the logo / background needs more contrast. 2. You are doing great work here! Cheers Murray

[mringler]

Ah, I might have misunderstood some posts, or at least I am not sure, are you all trying to tell me that the font:

is too hard to read, and that you prefer a different one? Fine by me, I am not married to that type. It'd be helpful if you posted the logo you preferred then (please do!).

I think I found the original font, it originally uses cleaner and more saturated colors, which looks quite different :


Not sure if it is the exact same, the "P" with the left extension is missing from the character sheet. But all other geometric fonts I found use a different "E".

I do like the font, but I wonder if this is the right approach, even when disregarding readability. In the end, the logo should fit the project, not necessarily my own taste. Ironically: big, blocky, idiosyncratic, stubborn, hard to read, a bit old-school - that isn't too far away from what I associate with Propel/Perpl. But maybe that isn't the foot to put forward... Maybe a plain and simple font would serve us better:

Elegant, classic, no hassle? A slanted "e" is all the extroversion we admit to?

Or something that's still a bit showy, but more industrial?

Any attributes you associate with the project, or general preferences towards font characteristics (classic, industrial, quiet, loud, ....)?

[mringler]

An updated version of the wooly logo can be found here, it uses css classes for colors, making it easy to play around with different colors in the web console.

[oojacoboo]

I think it's fine, although I prefer the colors of the first version. The monochrome is a bit more boring IMO.

[mringler]

Ah, I see. I like the idea to use different colors in light and dark mode. But we'll have to see that they still match and look nice, that's a good point.

Possibilities are plenty:

It's interesting how color is an integral part of the typeface.

[oojacoboo]

Yea, that purple and blue looks better IMO.

[kasparsatke]

It's interesting how color is an integral part of the typeface.

Color fonts are an integral feature of OpenType. A German font designer nicely explains how she used this feature to create her realistic ballpoint pen handwriting font https://liebefonts.com/fonts/liebeheide

Further examples what to do with color fonts can be found at Adobe and Microsoft who together with Mozilla contributed to this feature with Firefox implementing various OpenType features as the first browser.

Color font variants and other OpenType features can reliably but tediously be low-level targeted in CSS with https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Reference/Properties/font-feature-settings and a lot of the OpenType features can already be adressed more comfortably with own CSS properties, see https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Guides/Fonts/OpenType_fonts

[kasparsatke]

Any attributes you associate with the project, or general preferences towards font characteristics (classic, industrial, quiet, loud, ....)?

Ironically: big, blocky, idiosyncratic, stubborn, hard to read, a bit old-school - that isn't too far away from what I associate with Propel/Perpl.

@mringler This both describes the project already pretty well, although partially contradictory. It‘s astoninglishy multi-faceted:

For one part (rather the second quote) I could think of the project being a bit like steampunk if I see it in an old-fashioned romantic way. Although the woolly font does not really remind of steampunk.

If I look at some rough and unforgiving edges and the industrial aspect, I would rather describe it as dieselpunk with strange associations coming to my mind thinking of the gloomy retcon aesthetics of Wolfenstein - The New Order. I even imagined if a font could remotely resemble some Schaftstiefel Grotesk without being one.

If I look at the elegant parts, I would rather associate a piece of Art Deco and already imagined respective fonts.

It‘s kind of all of the above. And it‘s just full of contradictions. It is very smart and thought-through on the one hand while deeply broken on the other hand.